


Connie Gets an FTD

by McChef



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Existential Angst, Gen, Post-Canon, Space Flight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-11-14 05:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18046244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McChef/pseuds/McChef
Summary: It's only been a few months since the Diamonds went back to Homeworld after making peace with Earth, and so much has already changed. But when Connie gets sick, she, Steven, and Pearl have to get to Homeworld as quickly as possible. They need someone who knows how the Homeworld underbelly works. They need someone with a ship. They need a space pirate.





	1. The Accident

Stevonnie stretched their arms above their head and leaned backward. After a few seconds of holding the pose, they righted themselves and shook out their shoulders. “Are we using practice swords or the real thing today, Pearl?”

“Oh, let’s use real ones!” Pearl said, picking one from the small sample of her sword collection she had brought up to the arena.

“OK, but that doesn’t mean I’ll go easy on you,” Stevonnie said, grabbing the sword that Bismuth made for Connie from where it was leaning on a pillar.

Stevonnie and Pearl faced each other. They did a few warm up swings and parries, choreographed and simple. After a few minutes of this, the sparring began for real.

Stevonnie was stronger than Pearl, but while they were certainly not slow or clumsy, Pearl had the advantage of greater agility and dexterity. A strong lunge from Stevonnie was casually side-stepped by Pearl, and a quick slash from Pearl was easily parried by Stevonnie’s own sword.

Pearl was the first to break her opponent’s defense, and when Stevonnie saw her sword race for their center, they pulled out Steven’s shield.

Pearl jumped back. “I don’t remember agreeing that Gem weapons were allowed,” she mock-scolded.

“I don’t remember you saying they weren’t,” Stevonnie responded with a grin. They tightened their grip on their sword and lowered their stance.

Pearl shrugged, dropped her physical sword, and pulled out her spear from her Gem. “Well, all right, then I suppose I’ll just have to respond in kind!” She pointed the tip at Stevonnie and fired a light bolt at them.

Stevonnie blocked the bolt with their shield, and it ricocheted off into the sky before disintegrating. “Hey! Ranged attacks aren’t fair!”

“And what’s the best way to keep an opponent from using their ranged attacks?” Pearl asked, dancing away from Stevonnie’s wide lunges and slashes.

_ Keep the battle at short range, of course. _ Leave it to Pearl to make their lessons educational.

At Pearl’s hinted suggestion, Stevonnie dropped their shield and moved in closer. The close range limited the strength of their attacks, but it also reduced Pearl’s mobility. Pearl attempted to increase their distance a few times, but Stevonnie kept circling around her, preventing her escape.

Stevonnie’s sword and Pearl’s spear clashed over and over, but neither was able to land a hit. They continued to circle each other, keeping each other close. Stevonnie looked into Pearl’s face. She wore a determined smile and met Stevonnie’s gaze, who could feel themselves panting in exertion but was smiling as well.

The movement of sword and spear became repetitive, soothing, and their circling became faster, and neither of them noticed the warm white glow surrounding them before they created something entirely new.

“Whew!” The fusion exhaled, standing alone in the arena, one hand on his hip and the other gripping the handle of the parasol that rested on his shoulder. “Those two sure know how to get a work out in!” he said to himself. “A fusion shouldn’t have to come into existence already tired and ready for a shower.”

He looked down and took in his body, examining his arms and torso. “Hmm, this isn’t bad. I can see the benefit all that exercise is giving those kids.” He flexed, admiring the strong form of his arm. “A little human muscle could come in handy alongside a Gem’s power.” He punched the nearest pillar and was satisfied to see it crack just a little without any noticeable pain to his hand.

He put a finger to his chin and looked up, in an exaggerated expression of thinking, for the benefit of no one. “Now what exactly am I called?” he asked nobody. “Rainbow Connie? Stevonnie 2.0?” He shook his head and sighed. “Coming up with names is apparently  _ not _ one of my new Gem powers. I’ll have to ask Amethyst for advice. Once she gets over the shock of seeing me, of course!” He did a few more poses for his own admiration, finishing by leaning backward, the tip of the parasol on the ground and supporting his weight, and kicking a leg up into the sky.

He held the pose for a second, staring up at his own leg, when said leg abruptly jolted, as if digitally glitching.

“Well,” he said to himself, “that can’t be good for my humble self.” It was the last thing he ever said before he broke into his three components.

Steven, sitting on the floor of the temple, was a little disoriented trying to process what had just happened, but otherwise felt fine. Connie and Pearl, however, did not look like they were feeling as good. Pearl was barely standing, teetering back and forth and holding her head, until she found a pillar to lean on. Connie was on her knees, doubled over and holding her stomach.

Steven quickly got to his feet. “Wow, are you guys gonna be OK?”

Pearl breathed in deeply and slowly exhaled, steadying herself. “Yes, I think I’ll be fine in a moment. I’m just a little light headed.”

Connie got up, ran to the edge of the arena, and vomited over the side. When she was done, she called back, “Yup! I’ll be better in a minute!” then vomited again.

“I’ve never had such a bad reaction to a fusion before,” Steven said to Pearl. “And I’ve fused with both you and Connie. What do you think caused that?”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that, either,” Pearl said, “but if I had to guess, it’s probably because there was just too much of a foreign species present for either Connie or myself to handle. Three fourths is apparently stable enough, but half and half...that’s your natural state, so you can handle it, which would explain why you don’t seem to be having any adverse effects yourself.”

“This was probably the first and last time the three of us will fuse, then,” Steven said, shaking his head.

“I think so. But it was fun being...whoever we were...while it lasted.”

Connie rejoined them, wiping her mouth on the back of her arm. “I think I got it out of my system, but I don’t think I can do any more training today. I don’t remember the last time I felt this tired.”

Pearl patted Connie on the head. “You certainly earned yourself a break. You two did very well today.” Her thumb brushed over Connie’s forehead. “Hm? What’s this?”

Steven walked around to Connie’s front to look at what Pearl was referring to. On Connie’s forehead, next to Pearl’s thumb, was a small, off-white fleck, about the size of a piece of glitter and the same color as Pearl’s Gem.

“What? What is it?” Connie felt around her face.

Pearl removed her hand from Connie’s head. “You seem to have retained a small artifact from our little fusion adventure. I’m sure it will fall off on its own soon. Your parents won’t get upset in the meantime, I hope.”

Steven handed Connie his phone and she examined her forehead in the front-facing camera. “They probably won’t notice, but if they do I’ll just tell them that I’m trying out my grandparents’ customs.” She handed the phone back to Steven. “That should start another argument between the two of them about whether I should be raised spiritually or secularly and they’ll forget to worry about this thing.”

The three of them headed to the warp pad near the back of the arena and warped back to the temple.

Garnet and Amethyst were sitting on the couch, Amethyst eating a bowl of what looked like uncooked pasta in a bowl of milk, Garnet tapping her foot to some rhythm she was thinking about. “Did training go well?” Garnet asked.

“It did!” Pearl responded. “Well, until Stevonnie and I fused.”

Garnet sat up. “Oh, wow, congratulations.”

Through a mouthful of food, Amethyst asked, “So what’s your fusion’s name?”

“I’m not sure,” Pearl said, “I was actually hoping you could help us come up with a name for him. You did so well with Stevonnie, after all.”

Amethyst shrugged. “Fuse now and I’ll tell you what kind of name suits him.”

Pearl fidgeted her hands together. “That’s not going to be possible. The fusing didn’t exactly go well.”

“So the three of you fused but no one else saw it, and you’re never going to do it again?” Amethyst asked.

“That’s about it,” Pearl responded.

“I know what to name him, then. Baloney!”

Pearl stomped her foot. “I’m not making it up!”

“What went wrong with your fusion?” Garnet asked.

Steven and Connie walked to the front door and left Pearl to explain the situation, and to argue with Amethyst about whether it had happened at all. Connie turned around when she walked through the door to talk to Steven, standing in the doorway.

“I can borrow Lion again tonight, right?” she asked.

“Of course! But do you want me to come with you and make sure you’re all right?”

Connie shook her head. “It’s fine. I’m still pretty tired, but my stomach has settled down. I think I’ll just go to bed early.”

“I’m sorry fusing with Pearl went so badly.”

“I am, too. It was so fun while it lasted! I wish it were possible to try out more fusions, like you do.”

“Maybe we could try fusing with other humans?”

“No!” Steven pulled back at Connie’s outburst, and Connie blushed and hugged her sword closer to her chest. “I mean--I know it’s unfair of me to ask!--but I guess I’m just kind of uncomfortable with the idea of you fusing with any human that isn’t me.”

Steven relaxed. “It’s OK. I don’t really want to fuse with any other humans, either.”

Connie smiled. “I’ll come over sometime tomorrow, just to hang out.”

“Sure, see you then.”

Connie turned around and jogged down the stairs, waving goodbye to Steven behind her. Steven watched her swing her sword onto her back and greet Lion with lots of scratches to his face and neck. After a minute of that, she jumped onto his back and they were off across the ocean.

 

Steven woke up late the next day, his clock reading almost 10:30. He got up and stretched, and walked down to the living room, where he was met with Ruby and Sapphire sitting next to each other on the couch, each with a book in their lap.

“Oh my gosh!” Steven said. “Are you guys in a fight? Is it about Stevonnie and Pearl fusing? I promise it wasn’t bad enough to break up over!”

Sapphire looked up from her book. “Oh, Steven. I apologize, I foresaw that we should have warned you, but it slipped our mind. Pearl’s story yesterday did distract us, I suppose.”

“So you’re not in a fight? Then what are you doing?”

“We’re taking a break!” Ruby said. She laid her head down on Sapphire’s lap, holding her comic book above her face to read.

“Why?”

“Well, leading up to our wedding, I read some books about how humans manage a successful marriage. One suggestion was to spend some time apart,” Sapphire explained.

Steven looked at the two, as close as possible to each other without forming one single being. “I think they meant spending time physically distant from each other, not just being two different people.”

Ruby and Sapphire looked at each other, then back to Steven. “I can’t think of anything I’d want to do that I couldn’t do in the same room as Ruby,” Sapphire said.

Steven sat on the other couch section. “What do you want to do that you couldn’t do as Garnet?”

Ruby huffed, exasperated. “Garnet doesn’t like to read!”

Sapphire chuckled softly. “Yes, with my interest in these philosophical texts and Ruby’s passion for comic books, for some reason they combine in Garnet as liking neither instead of enjoying both. So we decided that we should unfuse a few times a year to develop our separate interests.”

“Just so you can read?”

Sapphire set her book down beside her. “That’s part of it, but not all. We’re so used to coming apart only during times of conflict or necessity that I believe we have forgotten how to talk to each other without just being of the same mind, and it makes it that much harder to find a resolution when those conflicts do occur.”

“So you’re already making plans to fight again?”

“Every couple fights, Steven, even Garnet. We plan to be together forever, and forever is such a long time that I can’t foresee everything.” Sapphire ran a hand over Ruby’s hair. “There will be circumstances when Ruby and I fundamentally disagree and need to spend time apart in order to reach a compromise. Or Garnet may run into a conflict unique to herself that Ruby and I will be better able to solve for her individually.”

Steven hugged his knees to his chest. “I’m glad you’re planning ahead, then.”

Sapphire smiled. “The perks of future sight.”

Connie came through the front door then. “Hey Steven! Oh! Are you two fighting again?”

Ruby waved her book at Connie. “No, I’m reading a comic book!” she said excitedly, then went back to reading.

“OK, then,” Connie said.

Pearl entered the living room from the temple interior. “Good morning, Connie! Oh, Sapphire, if you finish that book before you form Garnet again, I’d like to hear your thoughts on that book. I’ve read some of the works from the same writer and have some mixed opinions that I think you should weigh in on.”

Connie walked into the center of the room. “So what do you want to do today, Steven?”

“Um...I have to change out of my pajamas, but after that I’m up for anything.”

Pearl walked over to Connie. “Connie, your forehead…”

Connie slapped her hand over her forehead, covering it. “Is it that noticeable?”

Steven got up off the couch and walked over to her. “Let me see!”

“No, it’s embarrassing.”

“If it’s getting worse, we need to look at it,” Pearl said.

Connie hesitantly removed her hand. Instead of the one flat fleck from the day before, there were now five bumps, arranged close together and protruding slightly. The skin around the bumps was red and torn, as if the bumps had risen from under her skin.

“That doesn’t look good,” Steven said.

“Actually,” Connie said, “there’s more.” She lifted her shirt up over her abdomen. Circling her belly button were seven bumps of about the same size as the bumps on her forehead, also with the raw skin surrounding them, but these were a bold pink the same color as Steven’s Gem.

Steven heard a whoosh from behind him, and then Garnet was gently pushing him aside so that she could get a look at Connie. “Steven,” she said, “try using your healing powers.”

“Right!” Steven licked his hand and placed his palm on Connie’s belly button, then leaned forward and licked her forehead directly.

Connie laughed. “Yuck!”

They watched as the skin around the bumps healed, but the bumps remained. “As long as it doesn’t get any worse, I don’t think we need to worry about it,” Garnet said. Then another bump popped out on Connie’s forehead. “Oh.”

Connie breathed in sharply when the bump broke through, and put her hand over her forehead, appearing to be in pain. “What’s happening to me?!” she pleaded.

Pearl put a finger to her cheek. “I’ve never seen a case of it myself, but back on Homeworld we heard stories of Gems picking up fusion-transmitted diseases.”

“Those aren’t real!” Garnet said. “It’s a story used to scare Gems into avoiding fusion with different types!”

“Well, what else would you call this, Garnet?” Pearl asked. “Connie clearly has some kind of illness, and we know she got it through fusion.”

“Connie’s a human. It isn’t the same.”

“It doesn’t matter!” Steven cried, interrupting them. “We need to figure out how to cure her!”

Pearl crossed her arms. “If your healing powers didn’t work, I’m not sure if we have anything else here on Earth that will.”

“Could the other Diamonds help? Like they helped the corrupted Gems?” Connie asked.

“I suppose they might…” Pearl answered.

“Great!” Steven said. “Let’s warp over to Homeworld and get this figured out.”

“That’s not going to be possible,” Garnet said.

“Why not? We fixed all the warp pads.”

“Yes, but part of our peace agreement with the Diamond Authority was that no one representing them can travel to Earth through warp pad, and no one representing the Crystal Gems can travel to Homeworld that way, either. We’re all Crystal Gems here, so it won’t be allowed.”

“Why wasn’t I part of these negotiations?!”

“You’re very young, Steven,” Pearl said. “You’re a very skilled warrior, and we all know how you can find peace with hostile entities, but I don’t think you’re ready for that kind of detailed diplomacy yet.”

“But I’m a Diamond!”

“And the Diamond Authority offered your return to their ranks, but as long you’re aligned with us they don’t recognize you in that capacity.”

Steven sighed, frustrated. “Fine, but they can make an exception this time, right? It’s an emergency.”

“The Diamonds won’t see it that way,” Garnet said. “Our peace isn’t very stable, and they would see this as a breach of trust, if not a declaration of war.”

“The agreement was just to not use the warp pad, right?” Connie asked. “Why don’t we just take Pink’s legs again?”

Steven snapped his fingers. “Of course!”

“It’s about a day and a half journey,” Pearl said, “so we should leave as soon as possible. Let’s pack about a week’s worth of clothes and supplies for each of you, since we don’t know how long it will take to make Connie better.”

Steven quickly got dressed and used the bathroom, while Pearl and Garnet stocked his backpack with food and water and a few changes of clothes. Steven, Connie, and Pearl then got onto Lion’s back to take a quick trip back to Connie’s house to get her clothes before traveling to the farm where Peridot and Lapis had the legs for safekeeping.

 

Or safekeeping was what they were expecting. As soon as Lion warped onto the farm, Steven jumped off his back and ran to the scene in front of him. A new barn had the start of a frame beginning a ways away, but the real construction site was the pile of pink mechanical detritus strewn across the field. Each leg that made up the legs was separate from one another, and pieces of machinery were spilling out of each. Sparks from a welding torch were flying from behind one of them.

Steven rounded the corner of the legs and found Peridot working with an access panel, Lapis hovering behind her holding tools.

“Peridot!” Steven yelled. “What have you done with my legs?!”

Peridot stopped the torch and turned to Steven, pulling up her welding helmet. “I’m tinkering with it,” she said. “You said I could.”

“I thought you just wanted to open a panel or two at a time! Not gut it!”

“We can put it back together, Steven,” Lapis said.

“Yeah!” Peridot agreed. She tapped her head. “It’s not like I forgot where everything goes.”

Steven pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine. How long will it take to get this up and running again?”

Peridot glanced around at the damage. “Three days?”

“Three days?!”

“Two if we can get Bismuth out of her forge, but it will take half a day just to travel to her and back.”

“Peridot, we don’t have that much time!”

She shrugged. “That’s how much time it’s going to take.”

Connie and Pearl rounded the corner. Connie whistled. “So this doesn’t look good.”

Steven grabbed either side of his head. “What are we going to do now?!”

Lapis looked up over Steven’s head. “Incoming.”

They all looked up and watched the clouds break open, and a yellow spaceship sailed through. The ship slowed as it descended and softly landed on the grass near where they were all standing.

The bay door swung open and from her position near the entryway, Padparadscha announced, “We will soon be landing on Earth!”

“Give it a rest, Padparadscha,” Lars mumbled as he trudged out of the ship. He stopped when he saw Steven, Connie, and Pearl. “Oh. Hey, guys.”

“What are you doing on the farm?” Connie asked.

“This is where he docks when he’s on Earth,” Lapis answered for him.

“Yup!” Lars agreed, appearing to cheer up now that he was having a conversation. “There’s more room for the ship than my parents’ backyard, and Peridot gives it a free tuneup whenever we need it.”

“She didn’t totally destroy it?” Steven asked.

“Hey!” Peridot shouted from behind Steven. “Fluorite and I have supertuned that thing to be better than any ship that a civilian Gem could get their hands on! That thing could make it all the way to Homeworld in five days!”

“I’ve done it,” Lars said.

“Really?” Steven glanced at Peridot and then back to Lars. “Could you take us there now? It’s kind of important.” Steven didn’t entirely trust Peridot’s timeline of three days, anyway.

Lars scratched the back of his head. “Well...I  _ was _ planning on spending some time with my friends here, but...yeah, I was going to head back that way anyway. Can you wait a half hour while I load up some stuff?”

Steven was about to protest, but he felt Connie’s hand on his arm. “Of course we can,” she said sweetly. “Take your time.”

Lars smiled at her, then turned to Peridot. “Did you get that cargo for me, P?”

Peridot looked uncomfortable, casting her eyes down and worrying her hands, but Steven didn’t know why. “Yeah. It’s behind the barn framing.”

“Great! OK, guys, you know the drill!” Lars began directing Rhodonite and the Rutile twins to grab the boxes, chests, and crates sitting on what would eventually become a new barn.

“Why did you tell him we could wait?” Steven quietly asked Connie. “We need to get you to Homeworld!”

“I know you’re in a hurry, Steven. I am, too. But burning bridges to our friends isn’t going to help us in the long term.” Steven noticed another bump had appeared on her forehead, but he didn’t say anything.

Pearl approached Lars, who was watching the loading of his cargo with pride. “Excuse me, Lars, I hope you don’t mind me asking. What kind of things are you loading onto your ship? And why are you taking so many trips to Homeworld?”

“Oh, right, I haven’t talked to you guys much since I first got back. The cargo is goods I’m bringing to Homeworld and a few Gem colonies. Don’t worry, I can wait to stop at the colonies until we’re on the way back.”

“What kind of stuff do you bring to Homeworld?” Connie asked with interest.

“And what’s in it for you?” Pearl asked with suspicion.

“Gems have taken a real interest in Earth goods since you guys made peace. They don’t have things like rugs or books since they don’t have things like sheep or trees. Earth goods have become a real luxury item. As for what I’m in it for...some of it is officially sanctioned by Homeworld, and we don’t receive anything in payment besides the thanks of a few Gem officials.” Lars shrugged. “But I figure that that can only be good for the future of my off color crew. As for the rest of it, there’s a pretty healthy black market in the colonies, and those guys have actually got a currency they can pay us with. If you want me to buy you a Gem colony souvenir, let me know!”

“I had no idea that the other colonies had anything like that,” Pearl said. “But I’m not terribly surprised. Earth rebelled, so the other colonies can, too, in their own way.”

“Right. So what is it  _ you _ guys need a lift to Homeworld for?”

“This thing!” Connie said, pointing to her forehead.

Lars bent over to get a better look. “Huh, that looks nasty. You get yourself an FTD?”

“So you’ve heard of them!” Pearl exclaimed.

Lars stood back up. “Well, yeah. Fluorite talks about them sometimes. Says she always inspects any new Gems who might want to join her fusion. I guess that kind of thing is a concern for Gems with her lifestyle.”

“Did she say she ever found one?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Maybe it is all just a rumor, then…” Pearl murmured.

Pearl and Lars continued to chat about his shipping operation, and Steven healed the skin around the new bumps that had appeared on Connie’s forehead and belly button since that morning, until eventually the Rutile twins announced that everything had been loaded and secured.

“Awesome!” Lars said. He turned to look at Steven and Connie, shifting their backpacks in preparation to board. “Hey, you know you guys could stay here and just come through Lion’s mane in five days. I don’t exactly have a whole lot of creature comforts like food on board.”

“Mmmm...we’re already packed, though…” Steven said. “We’ll come with. But I might make a few trips back and forth to resupply.”

Lars sighed. “All right. You were nice enough to give me time to load, so I guess I can make room for the three of you on board.”

“I told you it was good to let him wait,” Connie whispered to Steven.

Steven smiled at her, then he and Connie followed Pearl and Lars on board the vessel that would take them to Homeworld.


	2. The Crash

Lars marched into the Sun Incinerator, followed by Pearl, followed by Steven and Connie. The door slowly closed behind them.

“Make preparations for takeoff!” he announced to his crew. Lars knew he didn’t really have to command that, as they were obviously well under way with system checks and securing of cargo. But it made him proud to give orders, and his crew didn’t seem to mind.

He turned and looked at his passengers, and then looked around the cabin. “Hmm,” he said, “Pearl, you’ll be fine, but you two kids are going to be in for a bumpy liftoff. Are you  _ sure _ you don’t want to come back in through Lion’s mane?”

“No way!” Connie said. “We were fine when we took Steven’s legs!”

“This isn’t quite as smooth a takeoff as a Diamond’s ship...but OK. Just sit on the floor at the back of the ship when we take off and put your backs up against the cargo door. That should be the safest bet for you two.”

Steven and Connie saluted in unison, as if they had planned it. Maybe they had.

“Status check!” he shouted.

“Engines...ready...” Fluorite’s deep voice rumbled from below the cabin.

“Controls online!” the Rutile twins answered.

“I’m going to be asked if Gem stabilizers and human life support are calibrated,” Padparadscha murmured to herself. “Oh! Yes, they are!”

“Navigation is...hold on.” Rhodonite pressed a few more buttons on her screen. “Navigation is online and our course to Homeworld is set, Captain Lars!”

“Well, that’s your cue, kids, let’s get ready to go to Homeworld!” Lars watched to make sure Steven and Connie sat up against the back of the cabin with their backs against the wall. And reflected that he should install some more human-friendly seats. He threw himself onto his own chair and ordered, “Take her away, Rutile!”

The Rutile twins pulled a few handles and pressed a few buttons. “Sun Incinerator taking off in 3...2...1…” They pushed the main throttle forward and pulled the steering levers back, and the Sun Incinerator lurched forward into the sky.

The Off Colors at their stations and Pearl standing at his side were largely unaffected, but Lars was thrust backward, pressed against the back of his chair from the acceleration. This lasted for about 30 seconds before the acceleration slowed to a steady velocity, and he felt the gravity in the cabin very slightly lessen. He cleared his throat and mock-announced, “This is Captain Lars speaking. The Sun Incinerator is cruising at a speed of a gajillion miles an hour, at an altitude of higher-by-the-second. If weather conditions remain stable, we will arrive at Homeworld in about five days and one hour!” He jumped up from his chair and walked over to Steven and Connie. “OK, you guys should be good to move around now.”

Connie was a little unsteady, and so Steven helped her up.

“You guys haven’t spent enough time in this ship to see all of it, so how about a tour?” Lars asked.

“Oh, that would be lovely!” Pearl answered. “I’d love to see your engine room.”

“Luckily for you, the only thing to tour  _ is _ the engine room. Come on.” Lars led his three guests down to the lower level of the ship.

The majority of the lower deck was taken up by the engine containment, a large prism-shaped cage going from floor to ceiling, inside of which numerous thin cylinders moved up down and several spheres darted back and forth, none of them attached to anything. Lars had no idea how it worked, but his chief engineer apparently did.

“How’s it going, Fluorite?”

Fluorite’s body was wrapped around the engine, her arms and legs occasionally manipulating the controls around the walls. “Oh...Lars. Everything...is working...smoothly. I’m glad to...see...your...friends.”

“Hello, Fluorite,” Connie greeted her politely. “Thank you for letting us see where you work.”

“Any...time…”

Lars turned around and faced the area behind the stairs. “Over there is where you guys are probably going to want to hang out.” Tucked between the counters and cabinets along the two stairways was a table with three chairs, behind those was an old couch, and behind that was the door that led to Lars’ very small bedroom. “I put in a few amenities for myself, plus an area that my crew can use to relax when they’re not on duty. There’s a few snacks in the cupboards, but I can’t promise how fresh it is.”

“So, Fluorite, if you don’t mind, could you explain what it is you do with these machines?” Pearl asked.

Lars turned back and listened to Fluorite slowly explain to Pearl how the engine worked and how she kept it in peak condition. Pearl was able to understand at least well enough to ask some follow up questions, which Lars had never been able to do, so he found himself learning more about his own ship from their conversation than he had during the rest of his ownership. His education was interrupted by coughing from behind him.

Steven and Connie had already opened up the cupboards, and Connie was holding one of Lars’ mason jars, now open, and coughing in reaction to what she must have just drank.

“Oh, geez, I should have warned you guys about those,” Lars said.

Connie’s coughing slowed to clearing her throat a few more times. “What  _ is _ this?” she finally asked.

“Something you’re too young for,” Lars said, taking the jar, closing it again, and putting it back on its shelf.

“Sorry,” Steven said.

“It’s not your fault,” Lars said. “Technically I’m too young, too, but, well, nobody’s around to stop me.” He glanced at Connie, and her forehead which was blistering under a few more of those rock bumps. “Besides, if anyone deserves a break right now, it’s Connie. Just, you know, don’t tell your parents.”

Pearl slapped her hand over the cupboard door. “I think we’ve all had enough of that beverage, let’s not get any ideas.”

Lars smirked. “All right. Well, I’m heading back to the cockpit.” Pearl remained in the engine room with Fluorite, but Steven and Connie followed him upstairs, Connie whispering to Steven about what she figured out was in the jar. She wasn’t too far off.

Lars fell back into his chair. His crew were diligently working at their screens, but it was calm enough that they were casually chatting with each other. They talked about the things they wanted to see on their trip, and what they were going to do when they finally got some shore leave, which had been delayed because of this mission.

“I didn’t even think of that!” Connie said. “I’m so sorry I took away your break!” She and Steven were standing between and behind Rhodonite and Rutile’s stations, observing their work.

“Oh! It isn’t a problem!” Rhodonite said. “You’re sick, and we might be able to help you! We know you would do the same for us.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, do you know what's going to happen to you if Homeworld can’t help?” one of the Rutile twins asked.

“Yes, if Homeworld can’t fix you, what’s going to happen?” the other Rutile twin asked.

“I don’t know,” Connie said, sounding concerned. Then, joking, followed up with, “but if I die, Steven can just bring me back to life like he did for Lars!”

“That is handy!” Rhodonite agreed.

Lars joined the conversation. “Is that something you guys figured out already?” he asked Steven and Connie.

“What do you mean?” Steven asked.

“Did you already talk about what the plan is if Connie dies?”

Steven and Connie glanced at each other. “Well, no, but I just assumed…” Connie trailed off.

“Not everybody will want that, is why I ask,” Lars said. “Don’t get me wrong, I probably wouldn’t have chosen differently myself given the alternative, but it’s not something to just not talk about! And it’s something you should actually think about whether you want.”

“Right. I’ll think about it some more,” Connie said, a bit sheepishly.

“OK. Good.”

The conversation dropped, but the awkwardness lingered until Lars got up and went back downstairs, making the excuse that he was going to check on Pearl and Fluorite.

  


Lars remained in a bad mood for the rest of the day, but he started cheering up in the second. There was a rather large asteroid that needed to be maneuvered around, which helped break his surliness. Steven and Connie came up to the cabin to watch that one, but they stayed out of the way.

After that had been taken care of, the crew and their guests settled into the journey. They already had a deck of cards on board, and Lars let Steven crawl through his head to bring a few books and board games back. Only two crewmembers at a time needed to be in the cabin when things were calm, so the rest spent a good amount of time in the living area below decks, playing games and chatting.

The bumps on Connie’s head were of course continuing to spread. On the right side of her face, they had grown up into her hairline and down past her eyebrow, causing her right eye to swell.

“It’s really not...a good idea...to fuse...without...precautions,” Fluorite was saying. Lars was playing a card game with Connie and Pearl, Steven was reading on the couch, and Rhodonite was just standing around.

“Fluorite, everyone besides you had their first mixed-Gem fusion spontaneously, and out of the hundreds of times it’s happened throughout the universe, this is the only time something bad has ever happened,” Rhodonite retorted. “Don’t you think it’s a little unfair to use this for your little public health campaign?”

“It never...hurts...to be...careful.”

“Sure it does! Fusion should be fun! You’re supposed to be scared and unprepared your first time, that’s what makes it exciting!”

“That’s no...excuse...to...put your health...at risk.”

“How does one even go about making those kind of preparations?” Pearl asked as she played another card.

“Well...first…”

“Oh, stars,” Rhodonite interrupted. “No offense, Fluorite, but I’ll cover this.” She turned to the group at the table. “I was around for her last few fusions. First, she asks them all sorts of questions about any prior fusions they were in, and whether they had any bad reactions. They never have, because bad reactions don’t happen in normal fusion. Then, they do a series of half-fusions, you know where you start to feel your bodies merge but then you stop? To see if there are any bad reactions. There never are,  _ because that doesn’t happen _ .”

“It did...with…”

“Connie’s not a Gem so it’s not a normal fusion!”

Lars could feel the awkwardness creeping back in, and was glad that at least he wasn’t the cause this time. “OK,” he said, setting his cards on the table, “I’m going to go check on Rutile and Padparadscha,” and went upstairs.

  


The third day was largely uneventful. Lars put in his time as one of the crewmembers on the upper decks. When there wasn’t a crisis to be averted, being captain was one of the more boring jobs in an operation this small. He spent the afternoon sitting in the captain’s chair, reading status updates that just said that everything was normal. He also sent a few messages to the Gems that had ordered his cargo about pickup times and locations, and they all returned with standard confirmations.

Rutile came to relieve him around what would be late evening in the Earth time zone they left, and Lars stretched and walked down to the lower decks. He greeted Fluorite and Padparadscha, who were chatting near the engine containment, then walked toward the back of the ship and his bedroom.

When he got close enough to see around the doorway, however, he saw Steven and Connie sprawled on his bed, both fast asleep. Pearl was sitting on the couch outside the doorway.

“Oh, Lars,” she said when he approached. “I’m sorry, you haven’t been using your bed, so I told Steven and Connie it was OK.”

“Oh, right. I don’t need to sleep every day, but…”

“I’m so sorry!” Pearl said, flustered. “Let me wake them up and you can have your bed back. They can sleep on the floor or this couch.”

“No, that’s fine. I don’t have to sleep right  _ now _ , either, I just had a break so I thought I’d get it out of the way. I can wait until they get up tomorrow morning.”

Pearl smiled. “Thank you, Lars. Your accommodations have meant a lot to those two. I think this little adventure has helped distract Connie from how scared she must be.”

“Yeah it’s...no problem,” Lars said. He stood quietly for a few seconds, then, “Hey, Pearl, can I ask you a question?”

She looked at him curiously. “Of course.”

Lars glanced behind him, but Fluorite and Padparadscha were still engaged in whatever they were talking about, and the thrum of the engine was enough to make eavesdropping difficult anyway. He sat down next to Pearl on the couch. “Do you know how old Lion is?” he asked.

Pearl hesitated for a second. “I’m not entirely sure,” she said. “Some of the things that Rose stored in his mane were very old, like Bismuth’s bubble, but it’s very possible she moved them there later. Since he has to be older than Steven, I would say he’s at least 15 years old.”

“That’s what I figured. Thanks.”

“Do you mind if I ask what your interest is?”

Lars sighed. “I looked it up awhile ago, and lions only live about 20 years under the best conditions, so even if Lion is only 15 and not much older, he’d still be an  _ old _ lion, not young and healthy like he is. So, you know, related to me…” he trailed off. He waited for Pearl to say something, but when she didn’t, he just started talking again, against his conscious decision to keep it to himself, “I told you guys that I was hanging out with Peridot and Lapis because I needed space to park this ship, and I do need parking space, but I also don’t want to spend too much time with my parents. I can tell they’re uncomfortable with how little I eat or sleep.” He ran a hand through his hair and stared at his knees, not looking at Pearl. “I usually visit Sadie for a few minutes whenever I’m back, but I don’t even like being around her anymore. I mean, I  _ like _ being around her, but I can’t stop thinking about how I’m not going to grow up with her. And I’m  _ cool _ enough to hang out with her friends now, but there’s no way they’ll still want to be hanging out with me when I’m still a teenager and they’re off starting jobs and families! Gems are the only people I feel comfortable around because they’re more like me than other humans are!”

Pearl touched his shoulder. “I understand what you’re going through. Living among humans, it’s something that’s always on my mind. They live such different lives than Gems, and sometimes it’s hard to understand why each second is so important to them when we live our lives so much more slowly than they do.”

Lars looked up at her. “How do you manage?”

Pearl removed her hand from Lars’ shoulder and set her hands in her lap, looking forward. “At first, we did pretty much what you do. We spent just enough time with humans to make sure they weren’t getting themselves hurt on any remnant Gem artifacts left on Earth, then we left before we ever had to see how they lived the rest of their lives. Rose had a few human men in her life, and Amethyst followed a few performance troupes around, you know like circuses and minstrels? I studied at a few universities. But we always left them after a few years.” She glanced at the doorway. “But now we have this half-human child to take care of. I suppose you and I are in a similar position, and we’ll figure out how to deal with humans together.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Lars leaned on one of the armrests, glumly looking at the floor.

“If you don’t mind me offering a little advice, Lars? I know things are going to be different for you, but you don’t know how different yet. It will at least be a few years, if not decades, before the difference between you and your friends will become noticeable. Things might get too uncomfortable later, but I think you should spend time with them now while it’s not. I think it will do a lot to keep you grounded.”

“You’re probably right. I’ll do that.”

Pearl glanced at the cabinets. “So...are your concerns about this the reason you have all that ethanol on board?”

Lars laughed. “You mean the moonshine? No. I mean, it helps a little, yeah, but honestly it’s just one of the few human foods I can still really taste. Also salt, hot sauce, and pineapple. I haven’t worked up the nerve to try those rock lizards that Lion seems to enjoy.” He shuddered at the memory of the half-chewed lizard that Lion had offered him once when he was back on Earth.

“Well...all right. Just be careful with it, humans sometimes have bad reactions to drinking ethanol. And  _ please _ don’t let Steven and Connie drink any. Connie’s parents would be angry with her, and Greg would be angry with  _ me _ .”

Lars smirked. “Thanks, Pearl. I’ll manage my consumption.”

Pearl didn’t seem to catch the sarcasm in his voice, and she smiled back at him and patted his knee.

  


The fourth day was  _ not _ uneventful.

Lars got a few hours of sleep after Steven and Connie woke up and vacated his bedroom, but he was woken up by a strong lurch as the ship’s propulsion came to a stop, followed by Rhodonite yelling over the intercom, pleading for him to return to his captain’s chair. Lars pushed himself up from the bed. This was why he slept in his clothes when on board.

He jogged up the stairs and stood next to his chair. “What’s the situation?” he asked. He could see for himself that there was a problem; the viewscreen showed that the black around them had been replaced by a dull red, warning lights were going off on the control panels, and the ship was shuddering more than the normal amount caused by the engines.

“We were hit by a strong stellar wind from starboard, possibly from a distant supernova that wasn’t detected,” one of the Rutile twins answered.

“We cut propulsion as a precaution,” the other twin added.

Lars nodded, staring out the viewscreen. He couldn’t see anything other than red. “What’s our status?”

“The stellar wind appears to be pushing us slightly off-course, but it is moving past us much faster than it’s carrying us,” Rhodonite said. “I recommend remaining stationary until it passes.”

“And the ship?”

“The stellar wind that will…” Padparadscha shook her head, “...that  _ has _ collided with us,  _ has _ knocked navigation offline, and attitude stabilizers are operating at a lower level of efficiency. I can get both working again quickly, but I agree with Rhodonite that we should wait for the stellar wind to pass before continuing.”

Lars gently smiled at her, and made a mental note to make sure there were no hard feelings about how many times he and the others had expressed annoyance at her visions of the past. Then he called out, “Fluorite?”

“Engines...are...unaffected…” Fluorite’s voice rumbled from beneath them.

Lars clapped his hands together. “OK, team, good work. We’ll wait for the storm to pass, then get this baby running again.” He turned around to see Pearl, Steven, and Connie sitting at the back of the ship, backs against the wall. He laughed. “You guys have it figured out. But you can get up for now.”

They did, and Connie had even more trouble than before. The white bumps had traveled around her face and down to her shoulders, and she seemed to be moving them stiffly. She just smiled at Steven when he looked at her nervously. Lars looked at her nervously, too.

They all settled in and waited for the stellar storm to pass, the red outside getting thinner as it did. Padparadscha worked away at her station, getting the affected systems back up, humming quietly while she did so.

After about ten minutes, the ship stopped shuddering and the red changed back to black. Rhodonite announced that the storm had passed

“Great. Rutile, start propulsion systems.” Lars looked at Steven and Connie. “And you two know the drill.” The Rutile twins pulled back a lever, and the ship thrummed with the sound of the propulsion thrusters warming up. After a satisfying rumble, Lars turned to Padparadscha. “Padparadscha, status.”

“I need two more minutes!” she answered, quickly pressing the buttons on her screen.

“OK, don’t rush, but let me know when--”

The ship was rocked by an impact from starboard. Lars grabbed the back of his chair to steady himself. “What was that?!” He was answered by another impact.

The source of the hits revealed themselves, as two small magenta Gem ships flew past the viewscreen. They passed twice, evidently circling them, and then two more impacts from port.

“Pirates!” Lars shouted.

“Aren’t you a--” Steven started.

“ _ Real _ pirates!” Lars finished for him. “Rutile, get us out of here!”

“But navigation--”

“Just go!”

Rutile pushed forward the main lever, and the ship lurched forward.

“They must have been riding the wave of the stellar storm!” Lars said, pacing back and forth in front of his chair.

The Sun Incinerator was faster than the pirates following them, but not by much, and their shots were still catching up to them, hitting them from stern. Lars ordered return fire, but the pirates dodged them.

“If they’re pirates, they just want our cargo, right?” Pearl asked. “Why don’t we just stop and give it to them?”

“A Gem pirate’s usual operation is to take the whole ship and just jettison the crew on board,” Lars told her. “I don’t know if they’ll change it up just because a few humans are on board.”

“Navigation will be back online! I mean it’s up now!” Padparadscha announced.

“Rutile, steer for the nearest planet habitable to humans,” Lars ordered.

Rutile glanced at their screen, then immediately pushed the controls back, causing the ship to slow. They took a sharp turn starboard, and Lars saw through the viewscreen a solar system come into view.

Despite their pursuers, the ship continued to slow as they approached, and when a particularly green and blue planet came into view, Lars ordered, “Land there.”

One of the Rutile twins bit her lip and the other furrowed her brow as they maneuvered the ship in for a landing.

The ship lurched as they hit the atmosphere, followed by two more shots from the pirates, before they pulled off, not pursuing them further. The Sun Incinerator was unable to pull off itself, though, as the weakened attitude controls caused it to rock back and forth.

“Brace for landing!” one of the Rutile twins announced.

“Brace for crashing!” the other announced.

Lars just stared as the surface of the planet rushed toward them, the viewscreen turning orange from the friction of the atmosphere. Just before they hit, his view turned pink as Steven’s bubble surrounded him. Then his ears were filled with the terrible sound of a planet colliding with this ship.

When the dust settled, and Steven’s bubble retracted from around the three humans, Lars quietly assessed the damage.

The landing had not been as bad as it had felt going in. The ship was upright, at the very least. All Gems and humans on the upper level appeared to be shaken but uninjured. “Fluorite?” Lars called out.

Fluorite stuck her head up from one of the stairwells. “Engines...will require...stabilizing...but are...otherwise...undamaged.”

“I wanted to know if  _ you _ were still with us!” Lars laughed in relief. “But thank you for the good news.”

The other crew members announced similar minor repairs that were needed, but no major damage was reported.

But then Padparadscha’s screen began blinking and issuing a warning tone. “Captain Lars!” she said, “I predict that the ship will begin to lose a large amount of fuel. I mean…”

“I know what you mean,” Lars said. “Door, now!” The door swung open for him, and he ran down the ramp, followed by Pearl and Steven.

They had landed on an unvegetated coast of the planet, and while most of the ship had landed on forgiving sand, the port side had hit a boulder and was now leaking fuel, fast.

“Everyone out here, now!” Lars yelled into the ship. “Bring the patching tools!”

His crew were out on the beach in a hurry. Fluorite, who was not as fast as the others but was certainly not taking her time, exited the ship through the door of the lower deck. Fluorite grabbed on to the piece of the hull that had bent away and hauled it over to cover the gash the rock had left, holding it in place while the smaller members of the crew got to work patching it.

Lars pulled on the pair of goggles that Fluorite had tossed him and then quickly stripped, leaving his clothes on the sand, before joining his crew and throwing himself into the stream of purple starship fuel that was leaking from his ship.

Rutile made runs back and forth from the ship’s supply room, bringing with her the metal plates that the others hurriedly bolted over the gaps in the hull, fuel flowing over them the entire time. As he accepted another patch from Rutile, he noticed Pearl and Steven had joined them in the patchwork, Steven naked like him but with his bubble around his head like a helmet.

After what must have been an hour of grueling labor, the hull breach was sealed, and Lars allowed himself two seconds to catch his breath. Then, he grabbed Steven’s arm and dragged him to the water. “Thank the stars the ocean is right here,” he said.

He pushed Steven, covered in purple fuel like he was, into the water and followed behind. Rhodonite was right there with two steel wool brushes, and Lars got to work.

Steven watched him for a second, and then he hissed a breath in as he realized what was happening, and started scrubbing himself as well. The adrenaline of the patch job had kept them from feeling it at the time, but now the pain and itching had set in from the corrosive nature of the fuel. Lars and Steven scrubbed themselves as hard and as fast as they could, Steven at one point yelling out from the pain.

Eventually they had scrubbed the fuel off of them, Steven as pink as Lars, and they trudged back onto the sand. The Gems had gotten in the water as well, but they were washing the fuel off themselves at a much more leisurely pace, laughing and chatting with each other.

Lars pulled his underwear and pants back on, and grabbed the rest of his clothes. He turned to the ship and noticed that Connie was sitting on the ground, in the ship’s shade, hugging her knees to her chest and watching the goings-on.

Lars walked over to her and collapsed next to her, exhausted. After about thirty seconds of lying on his back and staring into the sky, he sat up. Steven was sitting a ways away between them and the water, still naked, licking his hand and slapping his own skin, healing it from the damage the fuel and the steel wool had done. Lars looked down at Connie, staring straight ahead and looking unhappy. “Sorry you had to see me and Steven like that,” Lars said to her.

Connie looked up at him, confused for a second. “Do you mean the nudity? ...That’s OK.” She looked forward again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you guys with the fuel leak.”

Lars leaned back on his hands, taking in the scenery. There were a few clouds in the sky, but mostly it was all just blue-green sky, green-blue water, and dark brown sand. “It’s better you didn’t. Me and Steven have some protection, not being fully human in his case or fully alive in mine. You might have gotten a lot more hurt.”

“Maybe…” Connie started, then frowned. After a second, she started again, “Maybe when I’m a little older, I’ll die on purpose, and then when Steven brings me back, I’ll be more useful to the Crystal Gems.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Lars said, staring straight ahead. After a few seconds of silence between them, he sighed and pushed himself forward, sitting cross-legged with his hands in his lap. He turned to her, but she didn’t meet his eye. “Is being a zombie what you want? I’ve explained to you what life is like for me, right?”

She grimaced. “I don’t know if I  _ want _ it, but I feel like I can’t do as much as Steven and the other Gems can, and I would be more helpful to them if I could.”

Lars looked forward again. “Don’t make your life all about them. And don’t ever die on purpose.”

They were quiet.

Eventually Steven finished spitting on himself, pulled his clothes back on, and then walked over to them. “Do you want me to heal you, Lars?” he asked, his hand already wet with saliva.

“No.” Steven slapped him on the shoulder anyway, and it felt better, but not enough to agree to a tongue bath.

“Hey so what did you mean you aren’t a real pirate?” Steven asked.

“Pirates steal their goods,” Lars answered. “I’m a  _ smuggler _ . All I do is bring goods to Gems even if maybe they aren’t allowed to have them. Nobody loses anything, except maybe the Homeworld tax collectors.”

“Do you ever worry that it’s still wrong?” Steven asked.

Lars shrugged. “Not really. I make them promise not to harm my crew or Earth, anything else is their business. If they cross me, then I don’t do business with them anymore. I’m the only one who can get them Earth products, so nobody crosses me.” Steven and Connie just stared at him, so Lars laughed to try to lighten the mood. “But what are they going to do with textiles and paper? I don’t carry anything dangerous because Gems have plenty of dangerous stuff already.”

“Captain Lars?” Lars looked up to see that Rhodonite was walking out of the water, the fuel cleaned off her. “What’s the plan now?”

“Haaaah,” Lars exhaled, pushing himself up, and started pulling the rest of his clothes back on. He walked out into the sun and turned around to assess the patched-up hull of his ship. “OK, the hull itself appears to be stable enough to make it to Homeworld where we can get a full repair, but there’s no way we have enough fuel left.”

Lars heard Rhodonite next to him give a little gasp. “So what do we do?!”

The rest of his crew and passengers had gathered around him, awaiting instructions. Lars pinched the bridge of his nose and thought for a second. “I know someone to call,” he muttered. He removed his hand and turned to his crew, trying to smile. “Run a full diagnostic sweep, make sure everything is running as properly as possible, given the circumstances. I’m going to call one of our clients and see if she can meet us here.”

The crew got to work, heading back into the ship. Lars pulled out a communication device from his pants pocket and was about to start entering the contact when he noticed that Steven and Connie were standing next to him.

“What?”

“Do we have to worry about the pirates?” Connie asked.

“Eh, doubt it. They didn’t follow us in, which suggests that their ships aren’t designed to enter an atmosphere this thick. And they’ve lost the element of surprise now that the stellar storm has passed, so they’ve probably moved on. But, you know, keep an eye out. Over there.”

When they didn’t leave, Lars rolled his eyes and walked over to the water, then on it, far enough to be out of earshot from everyone on shore. Standing on top of th ocean, he entered the contact number for his client, hit audio only, and waited for her to pick up.

“What is it,” his client answered in her high-pitched voice.

“Hey, so I’m gonna need to change the rendezvous point.”

“What!” she yelled, “I paid you for delivery to my--”

“You’ve only paid half so far,” Lars interrupted. “That was my fee for acquisition. But it doesn’t matter because we got hit by pirates. We lost too much fuel to get to you. I need you to come help us out.”

“Get someone else to help you.”

“Your order is the most valuable cargo on board my ship by a factor of ten, you’re the one with most to lose if I don’t get off this planet.”

“But you’re asking me to fly into pirate-infested space! The deal we made did  _ not _ involve--”

Lars half-groaned, half-yelled. “They flew off!” He looked up at the sky and closed his eyes. “Look,” he sighed deeply before continuing, “if you meet me here and bring me enough fuel to get to Homeworld, I’ll give you your order and waive the second half of the payment.”

The line was quiet, but Lars waited patiently. He knew his client was stubborn and prideful and did not want give in, but the other half of her payment was a fortune. “Send me your coordinates,” she finally answered. Lars pressed a few buttons on his communication device. “All right,” she said, “you’re not too far away. I’ll be there in two hours.”

Lars cut off the line and put the device back in his pocket. He turned and walked back to shore.

Pearl, Steven and Connie were waiting for him at the edge of the shore. “It’ll be about two hours,” he told them. “You guys can relax for awhile, my crew and I will make sure the ship is ready to go for when she gets here.”

Lars left them on the beach and walked back into his ship. He checked in with his upstairs crew at their stations, then went down and checked on Fluorite and the engine. When he was satisfied that they were all managing the repairs, he went back to his room and got another hour of sleep.

The hour felt like minutes, but Lars resisted the urge to just turn off his alarm and go back to bed, and sat up with a groan. He spent a few minutes just staring into space, letting his eyes clear, then hauled himself up and smoothed out his clothes.

Because it was so valuable, the client’s shipment was stored in a hidden panel in Lars’ bedroom wall. He took it out, a heavy but not very big wooden box, opened it, and put a small sample of the contents in a small cloth bag, tying it with a string. Then he closed the lid and put it back in its hiding place.

He grabbed a few more things he would need from his room, then went to check on his crew again. They had completed all the repairs that could be done without a proper repair station, so he joined them on the beach for a small moment of relaxation.

Two hours and twelve minutes after he ended the call with his client, a light hit Lars in the eyes. He looked up. It was his client’s ship, reflecting the light from the sun as it came in for a landing.

Lars had been lounging on the sand, and got up quickly when he saw his client’s ship. “Everybody spread out along the shore,” he ordered, “try to stand at least 20 feet away from each other. Rhodonite!” When Rhodonite turned to him, he tossed her the cloth bag. “Hold on to that.”

“Should I get that box?” Rutile asked.

“Not yet.” Lars turned to Pearl, Steven, and Connie. “You guys stay back here by the ship. Try to stand apart from each other, too.”

“What are all these precautions for?” Pearl asked.

“This Gem is dangerous. You’ll understand when you see here. And when you see her, I need you guys to  _ stay back here _ . Do not approach her unless I call for you.”

“We wouldn’t attack your client,” Pearl insisted.

“You say that now, but...look, just stay here, OK?”

They looked at each other nervously, but nodded, and spread out from each other.

Lars turned back to the ocean in time to see his client’s dark-colored, cone-shaped ship reach them, hovering about a foot above the water. “Hey, that looks familiar…” he heard Steven say behind him, but Lars ignored him.

Lars walked to the edge of the water and waited. There were a tense few seconds of waiting, and he rubbed his sweating palms on his pants, but finally the door swung open, making a ramp into the water.

Two Gems that Lars didn’t recognize exited the ship, splashing into the shallow water, and stood across from him. They appeared to be the same kind of Gem; both were white with a very slight yellowish tint and were a little taller than Lars. The Gem that stood to Lars’ right had back-length straight hair and wore a tank top and knee-length shorts and had a collection of knives strapped around her hips. Her Gem was on her left elbow. The Gem that stood to Lars’ left had short curly hair and appeared less battle-ready than the other, wearing a formless short dress. Her Gem was on her forehead.

“Who are you?” Lars asked them.

“Our boss sent us out to pick up her order,” Forehead said in a smooth and unimpassioned voice.

“I don’t have an arrangement with you two, bring your boss out here.”

“Once we bring our order into our ship, you’ll get your fuel,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Lars.” Lars turned his head to see that Rhodonite had come to stand next to him, against his orders. She looked more nervous than usual. “These guys are Alabasters. They’re off-color hunters.”

“We were,” Elbow said from her post next to their ship’s door, in a lower-pitched and more gravelly voice than Forehead-Alabaster. “But there’s a moratorium on that little business, so now we’re in the shipping industry.” She spit into the water to show her displeasure for this apparent demotion.

Forehead just stared at Lars, not showing an emotional reaction to the other Alabaster’s statement. “We need to know that you have our order before you can talk to our boss,” she said.

Lars chewed his lip, considering the situation. “Fine. Rhodonite, give her the bag.”

“I don’t want to,” Rhodonite whimpered.

“Hey,” Lars said, touching Rhodonite’s arm, “it’s OK. You know I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Rhodonite cringed, but held the bag to her chest and started walking through the water over to Forehead.

“Hey!” Elbow called to Rhodonite. She held out her hand. “Give it to me. That one doesn’t know what she’s looking for.”

Rhodonite hesitated, looking to Lars for help. Lars couldn’t think of a reason to object, so he just shrugged, and Rhodonite reluctantly walked to Elbow instead. She held out the bag at arm’s reach for Elbow to take.

Instead of taking the bag, Elbow grabbed Rhodonite’s wrist and pulled her closer to her. “You thought I didn’t recognize you, huh?!” Elbow was grinning, excited at her catch.

“You two know each other?” Forehead asked.

“Oh, we go way back. Well, her Pearl and I do.” Elbow ran a finger under Rhodonite’s chin. “Don’t we, Pearl? Come on, unfuse from that Ruby for me, and we can have a little reunion.” Rhodonite could only start to cry in response.

“Hey!” Lars yelled. He pulled out one of the things he had taken from his room from the back of his waistband, an old revolver, and pointed it at Forehead. “Let her go!” He commanded Elbow.

Forehead looked at him confused, but Elbow scoffed. “I know what that is. It’s just a human projectile weapon.” She turned to Forehead. “You’ll be fine, those things move too fast to hurt us, it’ll just go right through you and you won’t even poof.”

“Maybe,” Lars said, tightening his grip. “But I bet if I shot her Gem it would do some damage. Oh, a Diamond would be able to heal her, but Steven’s not gonna do it. You’d have to run back to the Diamond Authority, and I’m sure they’re great friends to a couple of ex-bounty hunters turned smugglers! Get your boss out here,  _ right now _ .”

Elbow scowled. “You’ll miss, and then I’ll poof this one,” she said, grabbing one of her knives and yanking on Rhodonite’s arm.

Lars turned his gaze to Forehead. “I’m a great shot,” he told her.

Forehead returned his gaze, and they stared each other down for several long seconds. She rolled her eyes. “Fine.” Turning her head to the door, she yelled, “Boss, you’d better get out here!”

Elbow’s face was a mask of fury. She swung the knife in her hand at Rhodonite. Lars was about to run to her, but Rhodonite yelled and put her hand in front of the arc of the knife, and a flat shield popped out. The shield was much smaller than Steven’s and didn’t look nearly as strong, but it was also on fire. Elbow’s knife ricocheted off it, and while she was caught in surprise, Rhodonite kneed her in the stomach, causing her to double over. Rhodonite finished by thrusting her shield forward, knocking Elbow to the ground. Then the shield was dismissed and Rhodonite ran back to shore, into the Rutile twins’ arms, where she started to sob.

Elbow sat up, rubbing her head, and glared at them, but she didn’t make a run for them, so Lars slowly lowered his revolver and tucked it back into his waistband.

“What is the hold up out there?!” a voice yelled from inside the other ship.

“OK, everyone, back in formation,” Lars murmured. He glanced at Pearl and Steven behind him, who had both summoned their Gem weapons. “Put those away. And  _ seriously _ , do  _ not _ leave your posts back there.” He turned back to the other ship and waited as his client exited the ship, hovering several feet above the water.

“What is  _ she _ doing here?!” Steven shouted, and Lars held out an arm to hold him back as he tried to get at her.

Aquamarine laughed. “Oh, you still have hard feelings, I take it?”

“You kidnapped us!” Steven shouted in response.

Lars shoved him back. “I’m not kidding, stay back there! I have this handled!”

“What are you doing here, Aquamarine?” Pearl called to her. “Did Gem type lose their lofty position as well?” She wasn’t in an aggressive stance like Steven, and was instead leaning back with her hands on her hips, smirking.

Aquamarine sneered at her. “My sisters are still employed in the Diamonds’ court, opening and closing curtains and playing the part of dutiful little servants.” She smiled darkly. “But the Diamonds are weak now, after your little stint and all the reforms you convinced them to put in place. I saw the writing on the walls. Power isn’t gained through serving the Diamonds anymore, and so I’m going to find my own.”

“Where’s Topaz?” Lars asked. He would have rather worked with her.

“She wasn’t  _ mine _ , and she was too sentimental anyway, so I took on these two instead. They’re ruthless, but they won’t fuse, even though that would make them so much better at their jobs!” Aquamarine glared at both of the Alabasters.

“I am  _ not _ fusing with a different Gem type,” Forehead said.

“Aren’t you both Alabasters?” Connie asked.

Elbow gave a sarcastic laugh. “She’s a Calcite Alabaster, I’m a Gypsum Alabaster. She thinks she’s better than me.”

Forehead didn’t react in response.

“Never mind!” Lars yelled. “Aquamarine, connect the fuel transfer line and I’ll bring out your order.”

“No time for a nice chat? Very well.” Aquamarine grabbed her ribbon and snapped it into her wand, and manipulated a large, flexible tube from her ship to the Sun Incinerator. Fluorite connected it the fuel import and held onto it. “Now bring it out.”

“Rutile,” Lars said, jerking his head toward his ship.

Rutile squeezed Rhodonite’s shoulders and then let her go, then ran into the ship. After a minute she came out carrying the wooden box.

“Start fueling,” Lars told Aquamarine.

“How do I know that’s the real thing?” Aquamarine asked.

“Your Gypsum already looked at a sample. She inspected it thoroughly, definitely no screwing around. Right?”

Elbow glared at him, but took his meaning. “It’s the real thing,” she confirmed.

“Good. Calcite, go turn it on.” Forehead nodded and went back into their ship. A few seconds later, the transfer line started to thrum as the fuel started moving inside.

Lars turned his head without moving his eyes from Aquamarine. “Padparadscha.”

Padparadscha rushed into the ship, then rushed back out and confirmed, “The ship will indicate that our fuel supply will be increasing!”

“I kept up my end of the bargain,” Aquamarine said. “Now bring it here.”

“Don’t let that fuel line go, Fluorite,” Lars said. “Rutile, set the box at the edge of the water.”

Rutile did so, and Aquamarine used her wand to pull it to her. She peeked inside, and, satisfied with the contents, transported it inside her ship.

Nobody had anything more to say to each other, so they all stood silently, watching for any wrong moves.

After about five minutes, Aquamarine asked, “That should be sufficient, correct?”

Padparadscha ducked back into the ship, and came back out and announced, “There will be sufficient fuel to safely bring the Sun Incinerator to Homeworld! I mean, yes! We have enough fuel!”

Lars nodded, and Fluorite disconnected the fuel line and let go of it, allowing Aquamarine to attach it back to her ship.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Aquamarine said.

“We’re done, Aquamarine,” Lars said. “Don’t contact me for any more business.”

Aquamarine sneered. “Your loss. Alabasters, let’s get out of here.” She and her cronies turned and went back into their ship, which quickly took off, leaving Lars and his group alone on the beach.

Lars exhaled loudly, and laughed. “That was the scariest thing I’ve ever done!”

“There’s been a few scarier moments,” one of the Rutile twins said.

“We’ve done scary things before,” the other twin said.

Steven ran over to Lars, Connie following more slowly. “When did you become such a sharp-shooter? That’s so cool!” Steven told him.

“Huh? Oh, that thing I said.” Lars pulled the revolver back out. “I lied, I’m a terrible shot, I could aim at the ground and miss.” He cradled it in his hands. “This thing is an antique that my family’s been holding on to, apparently my great-great-gramps stole it from the Spanish. It’s definitely not loaded.”

“Your bluff was really cool, then,” Connie said.

“Firearms are  _ not _ cool,” Pearl said. “They are  _ dangerous _ and you two will never play with them. What  _ is _ cool is Rhodonite here!” She walked over to Rhodonite and grabbed her two lower hands. “I didn’t know you could fight like that!”

Rhodonite had calmed down but was still wiping a few tears from her eyes with one of her upper hands. “Ruby and Pearl are both very good soldiers,” she explained. “But that’s not what they wanted to be when they became me.”

“You acted very bravely,” Pearl told her.

Rhodonite smiled, then looked down at her hand that wasn’t occupied with holding Pearl’s or with wiping tears. “Oh my stars!” she said. “Lars, I still have the sample bag!”

Lars shrugged. “Oh well, we’re not gonna bring it to her now. We’ll just it for ourselves, I guess.”

“What’s in there, anyway?” Pearl asked. “May I see?”

“Sure,” Rhodonite said, handing it to her.

“Ah, actually Pearl--” Lars started, but it was too late, Pearl had opened the drawstring and looked inside.

Her neck immediately flushed blue. She spun around and faced Lars, eyes wide. “Why do you have these?!” she demanded.

“We found them on Earth,” was all Lars could think to answer.

Pearl stomped into the ship, everyone following behind. She paced back and forth in the room, staring at the bag. It lay open in her hands, revealing the very small jewels inside.

“What’s going on?” Steven asked.

Pearl ignored him, and whirled around to yell at Lars again. “How could you even think to sell these?! And to  _ Aquamarine _ , no less!”

“Honestly? She offered me a lot of money.”

“How dare you?!”

“What are they?” Connie asked.

Without looking away from Lars, Pearl answered, “These are Gem Seeds! They’re what Diamonds and their kindergarteners put in the ground to create new Gems. What Lars just handed over to Aquamarine was a box full of thousands of potential Gem lives!”

“It was less than a thousand,” Lars corrected her.

“Oh,  _ excuse me _ . Where did you even get them?”

“Aquamarine contacted me and said she thought there will still some unplanted Seeds on Earth, and I convinced Peridot to find them for me. In exchange, Aquamarine offered us enough money for my crew to retire on any colony for the next thousand years. So that we wouldn’t have to keep running around and putting ourselves in danger just to not be persecuted by Homeworld and all the other Off-Color hunters.”

“Oh,  _ that’s _ why Peridot looked so uncomfortable,” Steven said, slapping his fist into his palm.

“And right she should have!” Pearl said. “With her help, Lars delivered a whole army to one of our enemies.” She tied up the bag and held it in her fist, then pointed a finger at Lars. “You are a  _ traitor _ .”

“I’m a traitor?!” Lars felt his face and chest heat up in anger, and his heartbeat sped up to a pace that he could actually feel. “I don’t have any allegiance to you!”

“Aquamarine could use those Seeds to start another war between Homeworld and the Crystal Gems! You have to--”

Lars interrupted her. “I don’t have to do anything! I’m not a Crystal Gem, and I’m not a citizen of Homeworld! You all make everything about you, but you know what? Humans exist when Crystal Gems and Diamonds aren’t looking at them.  _ Gems _ , like my crew, have their own lives outside your little micromanaging sphere of influence! I agreed to take Connie to Homeworld because she needed help, as a  _ favor _ to a fellow  _ human _ . I don’t owe anything to any of  _ you _ ,” he said, pointing at Pearl. “None of you ever did anything for me!”

“That isn’t true,” Steven said. “You wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for us.”

Lars slowly turned to him. “What’s that?”

Steven placed himself between Lars and Pearl. “I brought you back to life,” he said. “That’s something we did for you.”

Lars didn’t respond right away. He stood up straight and placed his hands on his hips and met Steven’s gaze for several seconds. “You’re right, Steven,” he finally said. “You brought me back to life. After I got mixed up with  _ your _ little conflict, of course.” He laughed. “And how convenient that was for  _ you _ ! You have another head to store your garbage in, and a nice little portal where you can instantly travel between wherever I am and wherever your pet lion is!”

“That’s not what--”

“You know, Lion must have extremely useful for your mother. I’ll bet she was desperate for a place to hide all the secrets she was keeping from her supposed friends.”

“Don’t talk about my mom like that, Lars.”

Lars continued. “How lucky for her that she was surrounded by living creatures that turn into inter-dimensional pockets when they’re brought back to life. You wanna know what I think?”

“No.”

“I think your mother needed another storage place so badly that she  _ killed _ that poor animal and brought it back as the shambling corpse it is today!”

Steven’s face made Lars instantly regret what he said. He couldn’t describe it exactly. Some combination of shock, anger, sadness, and disgust. Whatever it was, Steven’s face had drained of color, his mouth hung slightly open, and his eyes were wide. And it was directed at Lars.

“Wait, Steven, that’s not--”

But Steven just turned around and walked down the stairs.

Pearl walked toward Lars and thrust her hand out. She dropped the bag into Lars’ hands. “It’s not an army, but maybe you can find someone who needs a few servants to sell these to,” she said, then followed Steven downstairs.

“All right,” Lars said in resignation, “let’s get ready for takeoff.” His crew nervously returned to their stations.

Connie approached him. “Um, Lars? I don’t know what…” she trailed off.

Lars shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.” He handed the bag to her, and she carefully took it. “Go sit somewhere safe.” He trudged to his captain’s chair and collapsed into it, and didn’t leave it for the rest of the day.

  


By mid-morning of the fifth day, Lars was still at his chair. He hadn’t talked since the fight the day before. No one had, not on the upper deck, anyway. His upper level crew had mostly stayed at their stations all night, even though they didn’t have to.

He was leaning over on the right armrest of his chair, his head in his arms, when he heard a small cough from behind him. He sat up and turned around to see Pearl standing over him at the left side of his chair.

“Pearl…” he started, his voice cracking with fatigue.

She held up a hand to stop him, and he did. “Listen,” she said, “I’m not going to pretend for a moment that I have forgiven your betrayal.” Lars didn’t respond, so she lowered her hand and her posture softened. “But I understand that you thought you acting in the best interest of your people. What you did was horrible, but I know from experience that one will do horrible things to protect the people who depend on them. So in both of our interests, I’m prepared to put this behind us and move on.”

Lars nodded. “OK.”

“With that said,” Pearl continued, “I think you should apologize to Steven.”

Lars furrowed his brow. “He should apologize to me, suggesting that his little parlor trick makes me indebted to him for the rest of my half-life.”

Pearl crossed her arms. “Yes, he should, and he will, but after what you said to him I know he won’t do it first.” When Lars only glowered in response, she put a hand on his shoulder. “If nothing else, I know it will make  _ you _ feel better.”

Lars let out a long sigh. She was right, the events of the previous day and the guilt of what he said were corroding him from the inside. He pushed himself out of the chair, legs not as numb as they would have been had his body been used to a higher blood flow. “Fine.” He walked down to the lower level.

Fluorite greeted him gently when he reached the bottom, and he managed a smile in return. He turned to the living area, and saw Connie sitting at the table. The bumps on her forehead had traveled down to her elbows and past her collar bone below her shirt. Lars thought he saw a few pink bumps near her collar bone as well.

“Are you OK?” he asked her.

She looked up at the sound of his voice. “Lars!” she greeted him cheerfully. “Yes, I’m fine.” She started to lean on her elbow on the table, but winced and pulled back.

Lars didn’t say anything to that. “Hey, do you know where Steven is?”

Connie nodded. “Yeah, he’s locked himself in your bathroom. If you can get him out of there, I’d really appreciate it. I’ve been holding it in for awhile.”

“Yeah,” Lars said, “I’ll do my best.” He sighed and walked into his bedroom, then turned to the small door that led to the broom closet he had installed a toilet in. He knocked on the door. “Hey Steven?” No answer. “Look, I came down to apologize for what I said. I’m sorry I said those things about your mom. You don’t have to forgive me, but--”

The door flew open and suddenly Steven was hugging Lars around the waist, tightly, his face pressed into his chest.

Lars held his arms up for a second, trying to register what was happening. Then he smiled and lowered his arms, patting Steven on the shoulder. “I don’t really think your mom killed any lions, I was just trying to be cruel. I mean she didn’t come across as that kind of lady.”

Steven looked up at him. “You knew my mom?” he asked. He let go of Lars and they two of them sat on the edge of Lars’ bed.

Lars rubbed his hands back and forth on his thighs. “I didn’t really  _ know _ her, I was pretty young when she turned into you. But I definitely knew about the colorful women who lived in the cave with the giant statue carved in it, how could you miss that kind of thing?”

Steven smiled at him, but then turned to look at his lap, his thumbs twiddling together. “I’m sorry I brought you back to life, Lars.”

“Hey, that’s...that’s not…” Lars sighed. “I’m not mad that you brought me back to life, Steven. I’m not even really upset that you got me killed in the first place.” When Steven winced, Lars continued, “I have good friends now that I never would have met if I hadn’t gone to Homeworld. Sure, it’d be nice if I were still fully alive, too, but what happened happened and I’m learning to accept that.”

Steven hugged him again, from the side, resting his head on his ribs. Lars put his arm around his shoulder. “I’m sorry I told you that you owed me anything for it.”

“Yeah, I was mad about that,” Lars admitted. “But tell you what. You accept my apology for the things I said yesterday, and I’ll accept yours. Deal?”

He felt Steven nod against his side. “Deal.”

They turned to each other and shook hands. “Hey,” Lars said, “we should get ready for Homeworld. We’ll be there in a few hours.”

With the hurt they had caused each other behind them, everyone on board made their preparations, hoping that when they arrived they’d find what they had come for: help for Connie.


	3. The Cure

Connie carefully washed behind her neck and under her armpits. Lars didn’t have a shower on his ship, so she was standing in front of the sink in his very cramped bathroom.

She examined her appearance in the mirror hanging on the bathroom door. The crystalline bumps on her face had formed a sort of mask, leaving space at her eyes, nose, and mouth, but otherwise covering her face. They traveled down her neck and were starting to spread down her shoulderblades, arms, and chest. The bumps near her navel had spread to her upper legs and up towards her chest. Where the white bumps met the pink bumps, they seemed to fuse together, creating larger, multi-colored crystals on her chest.

She had stopped letting Steven heal the skin around the crystal intrusions. She told him it didn’t actually hurt, but that was a lie, she hurt everywhere. She really just didn’t want him to see how bad it had gotten underneath her clothes. She rationalized the deception by telling herself that there wasn’t anything he could do, anyway, so why make him worry. And seeing him worry only made her worry more for herself.

Once she was done with her sponge bath, Connie started pulling on her clothes. She had saved one set to put on at the end of their journey, so as not to be too stinky: a pair of jeans, a short-sleeved shirt, and a hoodie. Putting on the clothes was a slow process since the bumps had made her joints stiff and her skin tender.

When the clothes were on, she took a minute to stare at herself in the mirror. She thought about the stress of the past week and what was to come and tried to steady her breathing. “OK, Connie,” she said quietly to herself, “things are good. Go out there and seize the day.”

She moved her shoulders up and down a few times to get her blood pumping, then pushed open the bathroom door. She walked into Lars’ bedroom, and shoved a few things she wanted with her in her sweatshirt pockets. Steven had volunteered to carry most of their supplies in his own backpack. Satisfied that she had what she needed, she headed into the common area.

Padparadscha was standing on one of the chairs at the table, waiting for her. “Hello, Connie,” she said, “Lars has requested that you…” she trailed off. After a second, she said, “I foresee that Connie is about to come out of the bathroom.”

“Right,” Connie agreed.

Padparadscha didn’t say anything for a second. “I’m terribly sorry,” she eventually said. “Lars would like you to meet him on the upper deck,” she finished.

“Hey, would it be OK if I asked you about all that?” Connie asked.

“You mean my faulty future vision.”

“Yeah. Are you just constantly living in the past?”

Padparadscha shook her head. “No, of course not! I experience the present as well as you do. But sometimes a vision comes to me, and even though I know it already happened, it…” she waved her hands in front of her, trying to come up with the words. “It takes over me. If I tried really hard, I could keep myself from saying these things out loud, and I used to do that, but then my friends got annoyed with how I went silent sometimes. Saying things that they already know is a little easier for them. If it bothers you, I can try--”

“No!” Connie said, “you’re doing just fine, Padparadscha!” She gave a nervous laugh. “I was just curious, is all. I’ll head up to the upper decks now, OK?”

Padparadscha nodded. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll follow you up in a minute.” As Connie headed up the stairs, she heard Padparadscha say to herself, “Connie and I are going to have our first conversation.”

When Connie reached the top of the stairs, Lars leaned around the back of his chair to greet her. “Hey, Connie! You’re just in time! We’ll be in sight of Homeworld in a few minutes!”

“Do I need to sit up against the back wall again?” she asked.

“Nah, Homeworld’s got a pretty smooth docking bay.”

Connie nodded and stood next to Steven near Lars’ chair. After about a minute, she felt the ship slow down as a planetary system came into view.

As Homeworld itself became visible, Lars leaned forward in his chair. “Ah, sweet!” he said. “Klavius 7 is in orbit!”

“Klavius 7?” Pearl asked from near Rhodonite’s station.

“It’s an asteroid that Gems visit to buy and trade,” one of the Rutile twins said.

“It’s where we took the Sun Incinerator,” the other Rutile twin said..

They got closer, and Connie was able to see what they were talking about. A small rocky satellite was indeed in orbit around Homeworld. It had what appeared to be a small city taking up most of one hemisphere, and the other hemisphere was dominated by three huge thrusters which occasionally spat out short bursts of flame.

“It follows a natural orbit around this planetary system most of the time,” Lars explained, “but the thrusters allow it to maintain orbit around Homeworld for longer periods of time.”

“They say that it was originally converted in order to prevent it from colliding with Homeworld,” Rhodonite said, “but over time it became a haven for Gems who wanted to be near Homeworld without being  _ on _ Homeworld.” She cupped her cheek with one of her hands and sighed dreamily at the thought.

“Including Gems like Emerald,” Lars said. “But we’ve given her a  _ lot _ of money since we started this shipping operation, so she leaves us alone now. Mostly. Rutile, bring us in to Klavius 7’s docking bay, that’s even better than Homeworld proper.”

The ship continued to slow, and the nose pitched upwards as they approached. The asteroid rose up to meet them, and the Sun Incinerator gently settled on an open landing pad. Connie barely needed to steady herself.

The sight in front of them was very different from the smooth metallic structures of Homeworld. The buildings in the city appeared to be made of the same gray and brown stony material as the asteroid, but had accents painted in reds and greens to make it feel warm. Everything was built lower to the ground than Homeworld, as well, and there was likely no kindergarten hidden beneath their feet.

“Padparadscha, let’s get that door open,” Lars said. Padparadscha hit a button on her screen and the door at the back of the ship swung open. Lars stood up and walked to the back of his chair, facing the door. “For those of you who don’t already know the drill, we’re going to be facing this way and standing still for the next few minutes.”

Connie did so, and watched as two cone-shaped drones flew into the ship. One of them headed to the lower deck, the other stayed on the upper deck.

“Look out!” Steven warned, “it’s the robonoids! Everyone get behind Lars!”

Lars put a hand on Steven’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Steven. These guys don’t work for the Diamonds. They’re just doing a quick background check.”

Connie didn’t know what the significance of the robonoids was, but she gathered that Steven and Lars had run into them in the past. She held still as the robonoid on the upper deck scanned the crew members. Every time the robonoid’s scanner ran over the Gem of the crew members, it turned green for a second and then moved on to the next.

“See, it’s fine,” Lars murmured. “The Gems on this asteroid just don’t want any authority figures snooping around.” He let the scanner run across him, and it didn’t seem to register that he was there.

Then the robonoid moved on to Steven, who stood up straight as it passed from his head down. Unlike the rest of the Gems, however, when it hit his Gem the robonoid started flashing a red light and emitting a siren.

As everyone else flinched, Lars said, “Ah, geez, I forgot about Steven. OK, guys, calm down, we’re just gonna get a visit from the docking bay clerk.”

Connie watched as a large number of Gems rushed from the buildings on the other side of the docking bay toward the ship. Once they reached them, they formed a semi-circle around the doorway. Some of the Gems Connie knew the types of, including Pearls and Quartzes, but others weren’t familiar to her. A couple of them looked like they might even be fusions. The Gems surrounding the door were obviously there as security. Some had drawn their weapons, and all were standing in a way to make it clear that the occupants of the ship would not be walking out onto their asteroid without their permission.

A single Gem pushed her way to the front of the crowd and walked up the ramp onto the ship. She was blue and was wearing a suit and a monocle. Connie looked up at Lars, who was grinning, and Steven, whose jaw was open in surprise.

“Zircon!” Steven cried in greeting. He ran over to the Gem and threw his arms out for a hug. She allowed him, although appeared confused by the gesture.

“If it isn’t you two again,” she said.

“Sorry about the confusion, Zircon,” Lars said, walking forward and shaking her hand. “It didn’t even occur to me to register Steven.”

“I’m so glad you’re OK!” Steven told her. “The last time I saw you…”

Zircon chuckled. “The Diamonds were gracious enough to let me reform,” she explained, “but when I did, they made it clear that I was no longer welcome on Homeworld proper. But a trading colony like this one is always in need of an administrator, so I found a place here.”

“Um, excuse me…” Connie interrupted, “my name is Connie Maheswaren. May I ask how you know my friends?”

Steven turned around to face her. He threw up his arms to present the Gem next to him. “This is Zircon!” he said, “she was my defense attorney! She did a really good job, too!”

“ _ Too _ good, really,” Zircon said. “I’ve been apprised of  _ your _ situation,” she told Steven. “I understand you’ve been Pink Diamond this whole time? I’m a little insulted that you didn’t tell me before your trial, to be quite honest.”

“I didn’t know until after.”

“Yes, I remember your little memory lapse. Well, anyway, your being a Diamond is what set these alarms off, but I can register your specific wavelength so that you’ll be allowed back here again. As long as you haven’t aligned yourself with the Diamond Authority. You haven’t, right?”

Steven nodded. “Right.”

“All right,” Zircon said, summoning a writing tablet in front of her, “Then the occupants of this ship include a sextuple-fusion Fluorite, a dual-fusion Rhodonite, a Rutile, a Padparadscha-variant of Sapphire, a Pearl, an organic-hybrid Diamond, and one non-Gem sentient organic lifeform. Is that correct?”

“We have  _ two _ non-Gem lifeforms on board,” Lars said. “Me and Connie.”

“The robonoids never scanned me,” Connie explained.

Zircon glanced at her tablet. “Too preoccupied with alerting us about Steven, I suppose. It doesn’t matter, if you don’t have a Gem they won’t recognize you.” She pressed a few buttons on the tablet and then dismissed it. “All right, the crew and passengers of this ship is cleared to enter Klavius 7. Your ship can stay docked at this location without charge for two days, after which a daily fee will be imposed.”

The Gems standing guard outside the door gave another suspicious leer toward them before dispersing.

“Thanks for getting everything straightened out for us,” Lars said. “Hey, while you’re here, do you mind running a little errand for me?”

Zircon crossed her arms. “That’s not my role here.”

“I know, I know, just...Rhodonite, can you get box B-3 up here?” Rhodonite nodded and hurried down the stairs. “I brought a gift for the governor. If you deliver it for me a little of the good will will rub off on you, too, right?”

Zircon raised an eyebrow. “Very well, I’ll make time for that today.”

Rhodonite came back up the stairs with a large wooden box in her arms. She placed it on the floor between Lars and Zircon.

“What exactly am I delivering?” Zircon asked.

“Take a look for yourself,” Lars told her. As Zircon opened the lid and examined the contents, he explained, “A collection of Earth fabrics: there’s rugs, blankets, sweaters, and hats. I heard that Governer Tourmaline likes soft things.”

Zircon rubbed a blanket between her fingers. “This is quite remarkable,” she admitted.

“Choose something out of there for yourself. As thanks for the delivery.”

She stood up. “I will.” At her gesture, an Amethyst who had still been hovering by the door entered the ship and picked up the box. Zircon and the Amethyst left, the robonoids following behind, and Zircon called over her shoulder, “Enjoy your visit.”

Lars, smiling, put his hands on his hips and nodded. “You heard the Gem. Standard shore leave procedure, everyone: at least two on the ship at a time, call me if Emerald shows up and doesn’t accept her usual bribe. Bla bla, you know the drill.” He clapped Steven on the back. “I have to duck out of guard rotation, gotta escort these guys to Homeworld. Unless you guys wanna hang around the asteroid for awhile?”

Steven glanced at Connie, who shook her head. “I think we should see the Diamonds as soon as possible,” he said.

When Lars looked at Connie, his smile faded, and Connie hugged her arms to her chest. “That’s fine.” He waved to his crew. “Have fun guys.”

The crew of the Sun Incinerator offered their goodbyes, and Lars led Connie, Steven, and Pearl out of the ship and across the docking bay. Rutile and Padparadscha left the ship right behind them, but they turned and made their way toward the market on the outskirts of the town next to the docking bay, giggling and chatting with each other. The market was full of elaborate signs and yelling vendors advertising their wares, although what they were selling Connie could only begin to guess.

Lars led them to a rectangular landing pad that had different markings from the others. A purple Gem, large in both height and width, was waiting next to the steps leading to the pad. Lars came to a stop next to the same steps.

“What are we doing now?” Pearl asked.

Lars turned to face them. “Waiting for the shuttle. It’s pretty frequent, so we shouldn’t be waiting too long.” He put his hands in his front pants pockets. “Sorry about not going straight to Homeworld. It would have been a little quicker, but my crew probably would have had to stay on the ship.”

“It’s fine,” Connie said. Lars gave her a smile.

True to Lars’ word, the shuttle settled on to the landing pad within ten minutes. It was rectangular and fit the pad almost perfectly, and was yellow and lined with windows. It looked like a school bus, but surely that was a coincidence. A door in the middle of one side of the shuttle bus opened up and four Gems exited, after which the waiting passengers entered.

The inside of the bus was lined by a bench on either side, facing the center. Connie sat between Steven and Pearl on one side of the bus, and Lars sat across from them, leaning back against the wall. The large Gem sat on the other side of the bench from Lars.

The Gem operating the controls at the front of the bus was a Ruby, and as she closed the door she cheerfully greeted her passengers, “Hello, thank you for choosing the Homeworld Transport Shuttle! I’m going to take off now, so please remain seated so as not to distract me. OK, here we go!” She pushed a few buttons on the screen in front of her and the bus took off. There was a small lurch as it left the landing pad, but evened out quickly and the ride into the air was a gentle one.

The journey to Homeworld felt almost like falling, as the shuttle was naturally pulled toward the planet via gravity and the thrusters were only required to steer to the intended landing spot.

Connie glanced at the large Gem a few times, and she returned the glances with a few raised eyebrows, but the Gem didn’t say anything to them. Likely a Gem who had reason to visit a place like Klavius 7 was also well enough acquainted with strange beings like Connie, Steven, and Lars to leave them to their business.

The shuttle flew in to a docking bay a good distance away from the center of the Homeworld capital. Steven, up on his knees and looking out the window, pointed it out. “This isn’t where we landed my legs last time we were here.”

Lars snorted. “No, we’re not gonna be landing in the courtyard of the Diamond Palaces.”

Connie got on her knees, too, and watched with Steven as the shuttle slowed on its approach to a small docking bay on the outskirts of what appeared to be a small industrial district, or whatever the Homeworld equivalent of industry happened to be. Homeworld was bright and metallic, like Connie remembered it to be, unlike Klavius 7 which was dark and earthy.

The shuttle bus settled on a landing pad with a very gentle thud. The Ruby operator jumped up from her seat as the door opened and exited the shuttle ahead of the passengers. She stood at the bottom of the ramp and announced, “welcome to Homeworld!”

Three Gems were waiting next to the landing pad to board. One of them Connie recognized as a Topaz, although with her Gem on her chest she was obviously not either of the Topazes that had captured her and her friends, The other two she didn’t recognize, but one of them was obviously a fusion of some sort.

After one last glance at Connie, the large Gem pushed herself off the bench with some effort and exited the shuttle first, lumbering down the ramp. She nodded to the Ruby and headed off into the industrial district on whatever business she had.

Connie and the others exited next, Lars leading the way. The waiting Gems filtered on to the shuttle, politely moving past them.

When Lars got to the end of the ramp, the Ruby put her hand up to stop him. “Excuse me,” she said, “since you aren’t citizens of Homeworld, would you consider a donation to keep this complimentary shuttle service operating?” She held up a small black cube, about three inches on a side.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lars said, and dug around in his pants pocket until he pulled out a thin black strip of metal. He stuck one end of the strip into a slot on the Ruby’s cube, where it momentarily glowed before fading, and he pulled it back out.

The Ruby tucked the cube under one arm and raised the other. “Good travels to you all!” she exclaimed with a grin.

The group walked past her as the Ruby ran back in to the shuttle and closed the door, and it once again slowly rose up into the sky.

“That was nice of you to donate to her operation,” Steven said.

Lars glanced at him with a smirk. “Wasn’t really optional. Not if we wanted a ride back. Come on, you guys want to meet with the Diamonds, right? We’ve got a bit of a hike to get there.”

The four of them made their way through the industrial district they had had landed near. Unlike the neighborhood surrounding the Palaces, which were organized in an angular layout, the district they were walking through now had streets set up in a serpentine pattern, winding around the buildings. They walked past factories and machine shops, and Gems standing near the tall buildings performing manual tasks. Some of them  just stood and glared at Connie and her group with arms crossed, a nonverbal cue for them to keep walking.

After many twists and turns through narrow alleyways and past loud machinery, they finally broke into a neighborhood with the same angular layout and open spaces as the central Homeworld capital. Bridges arced over open crevices where the remnants of ancient kindergartens could be seen.

Near the ends of each bridge, on islands rising about the kindergartens, were tall, round towers. They vaguely resembled the kindergartens below in that they were covered in small caves, but unlike the holes that Gems had once burst out of, these pockets were rectangular holes about five feet wide and ten feet tall. They were fully open on the outside face, and in many of them Gems could be seen sitting or standing or visiting with their neighbors. This appeared to be a Gem residential neighborhood.

As they made their way into this residential area, Connie noticed that they were being followed by robonoids. They flew in one or two at a time, scanned them as a group, made some processing noises, and then flew off again before one or two more flew in to perform the same routine again.

After the third scan, Connie asked, “What are these guys looking for?”

“They’re still out looking for off-colors,” Lars answered.

Pearl turned her head to look at him. “Is that true? One of the stipulations in our treaty was that Homeworld would cease persecution of nonstandard Gems on Homeworld.”

Lars sighed. “Yeah, off-colors aren’t being shattered like they used to be, but if they’re found on Homeworld surface they’re kicked off, usually to Klavius 7 if they don’t have somewhere else to go. So all the off-colors on Homeworld are either still living in the bowels of the city or they’re making their way to the docking bays hoping to find a ride off-planet.” He fell silent, and no one had anything else to say, for a minute, before continuing, “Actually, it’s not the off-colors I’m worried most about, anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Pearl asked.

Lars pointed at a tower on the other side of the bridge they were walking across. “You see that pod about a third of the way up that tower, with the two Gems in it?” Connie followed the direction of his finger. A yellowish Gem and a greenish Gem were sitting next to each other in one of the pods, legs dangling off the edge. “You see how they seem to be enjoying themselves? Having a conversation?”

“I don’t think we should be invading their privacy,” Pearl said.

Lars continued, “Now see that robonoid flying in?” The robonoid he was referring to swooped into the pod and scanned both Gems. The Gems stopped their conversation until it left. After it flew away, one of the Gems stood up, and while they were too far away to overhear, she appeared to be making her apologies to her friend, and she exited through the doorway at the back of the pod into the interior stairwell.

“Why would the robonoids be scanning so many Gems?” Steven asked. “They’re obviously not off-colors.”

“A lot of Gems think off-color hunting is just an excuse,” Lars explained. “After you guys made peace with the Diamonds, a few previously loyal Gems have abandoned their posts and headed off planet on their own. Like Aquamarine. It hasn’t been that many, but the rumor is that the Diamonds are worried about some sort of rebellion and are sending out the robonoids to keep tabs on which Gems hang out with each other.”

Connie took another look around the neighborhood. It had appeared lively when they first entered because of how bright and colorful it was, but now she noticed that Gems having long conversations with each other, like the two that were chased apart by the robonoids, were sparse. The inhabitants gave small greetings as they passed each other, but then they hurried on, some even glancing behind their shoulders. She didn’t see any groups larger than three.

They eventually made their way through the neighborhood and came to a very wide and long bridge leading to the city center. This was the area Connie remembered from the last time she was on Homeworld, with its jagged architecture and tall buildings that she didn’t know the use for. Were there Gems inside working office jobs like humans did on Earth, or were they just empty monuments to the Diamonds’ glory? The Diamonds seemed to value both industry and vanity, so Connie figured it could be either one. She hoped it was the latter, though, so that no Gem civilians would have been harmed during their battle with White Diamond.

The number of robonoids flying around decreased dramatically as they arrived in the city center, but there were enough guards and other official-looking Gems milling about that there was no mistaking that they were still being watched. As they first entered, most of the looks they got from the guards were suspicious. One guard even followed them at a not very subtle distance past several large buildings before she was apparently satisfied that they weren’t causing any trouble and returned to her post.

As they approached the palace, however, some of the Gems started to recognize Steven. Connie could hear whispers of  _ Pink Diamond _ and  _ Pink Steven _ and  _ Steven Diamond _ , as evidently his own name was still too difficult.

Gems started approaching Steven, wanting to greet Pink Diamond and express how much they loved Pink and all the other Diamonds. Steven entertained the first few, telling him he was glad to meet them and asking them a few questions about themselves before they all got too flustered and ran away.

During one such conversation, however, Connie winced as she felt another white crystal and pink crystal stitch together, and she grabbed her chest before she could stop herself. Lars must have seen that, as he touched Steven’s shoulder and said, “Hey, Steven, I think we should actually keep it moving.”

Steven followed his gaze and looked at Connie, who quickly put her hand back to her side. “Oh...right,” he said. He turned back to the Gem that was talking to him and said, “It was nice meeting you, but my friends and I have to get to the palace, OK?” The Gem sputtered out an embarrassed apology for bothering them, and ran off.

Lars and Pearl changed positions so that they were on the outside of their group, able to turn away Gems looking for an audience with Steven. An outstretched hand and a  _ Pink Diamond is not taking visitors at this time _ did the trick, and the Gems respectfully kept their distance.

Connie quietly sighed with relief when the doors to the palace came into view. She was usually so athletic and a long walk like that wouldn’t have bothered her, but now she felt like all the energy had been drained out of her.

As they approached, Steven remarked, “I’ve never actually walked through the front doors of the Palaces. We just landed on Pink’s roof.”

“I’ve been through the front door a few times,” Lars said, “but they don’t let me past reception.”

One either side of the very large doors leading into the main palace, two dark-colored Gems of the same type were standing guard. At first they appeared bored and inattentive, leaning on the staffs they held and chatting with each other. When they noticed Connie and her group, they snapped to attention and adopted stern expressions.

“What is your business here,” the guard on the left side of the door demanded.

“I got this,” Lars muttered. He took a few steps toward the two guards. “Hey, Onyx,” he said to the first guard, then nodded to the other. “How you been, Onyx?”

The Onyx on the right smirked. “You’re back, huh? What’d you bring us?”

Lars put his hands on his hips and leaned back slightly. “Why do I have to bribe you every time I come to visit the palace?” he asked them.

“You don’t have to,” the left-side Onyx said. “We could call in to reception and they could just turn you away from here.” She looked at Connie. “Who are your friends?”

“Never mind them,” Lars said. He dug into his back pants pockets. “Look, I didn’t bring anything big this time, but I do have this.” He handed them each a small cloth. “They’re what we call ‘handkerchiefs’ on Earth. Made out of an organic material called ‘cotten.’”

Left-side Onyx looked at the piece of fabric. “This isn’t very much,” she said.

“Yeah, well, next time I’ll bring you each a whole box of disposable handkerchiefs made out of wood fiber.”

“What does ‘disposable’ mean?” right-side Onyx asked.

“It means you can get rid of it when you’re done with it. You gonna let us in or not?”

Left-side Onyx rubbed her chin. “Well...considering your upstanding history with Homeworld, I guess we can let you in this time.” She tapped the ground with her staff and a door began to slowly swing open. It wasn’t the 30-foot main doors that opened, but rather a smaller ten-foot door that Connie hadn’t noticed was inset in one of the larger doors.

When the door was finished opening, Lars led them through, but stopped to turn to right-side Onyx and say, “by the way, one of the people you were detaining here is Pink Diamond.”

The Onyxes looked at Steven and recognition dawned on their faces. They both clicked their heels together and made the Diamond salute with their hands as well as they could with staffs in their hands and said in unison, “Welcome home, Pink Diamond.”

“Thanks…” Steven muttered uncomfortably as they passed through the door.

The room they entered into was large, off-white, and mostly empty. There was a door on the left and right walls, and a long counter at the back of the room. A Lapis Lazuli manned that desk.

Connie glanced to her left and saw that the front wall was lined with a bench, and she allowed herself to collapse onto it while Steven and Lars approached the Lapis Lazuli. Steven had just started to introduce himself to her when the door on the left wall swung open and Yellow Diamond’s Pearl walked through.

“Steven Diamond,” she said, greeting him with the Diamond Authority’s salute, “we welcome your radiant presence back into ours.”

“Hey, Yellow Pearl,” Steven replied. “Is Blue Diamond around?”

“If it pleases your extraordinariness, you may refer to me as only ‘Pearl.’”

“I will if you just call me Steven.”

Yellow Pearl pursed her lips, obviously not pleased. “Regardless, Blue Diamond and her Pearl are unfortunately away on colony business. Yellow Diamond has anticipated your arrival, however, and is willing to grant you an audience.”

“Aw, Blue would have been easier to talk to. But yeah, I guess we’d like to talk to her.”

Yellow Pearl glanced around the room, making sure no important Gems were present. “Do you want to see something first?” She summoned a tablet and swiped through until she found the picture she was looking for. “Blue Diamond’s Pearl made a prototype for the Era 3 emblem, and Blue Diamond said she might show it to the design committee!” As Steven and Lars leaned in to look at it, she explained, “See, it’s similar to the Era 1 emblem, here’s White Diamond’s diamond on top, and Yellow and Blue on the sides like it was back then, but then instead of your pink diamond on the bottom, it’s a pink circle! It represents that you’re still around, but separate. And that your Gem is facing the wrong way now.”

“That’s really nice,” Steven said. “Blue Pearl must be really proud of it.”

They continued to chat about the insignia and about other gossip in the Palace, and Pearl came to sit next to Connie on the bench. “Are you doing all right?” she asked her.

“Um...actually, no. I hurt a lot, and I’m always tired. I know I shouldn’t have been keeping that to myself so much, but I didn’t want you guys to worry.” Connie pulled one of the granola bars she had put in her pocket out and started eating it, shoving the wrapper back in the pocket. The snack made her feel a little better.

“It’s fine, I understand. Now, don’t ever hide your pain when someone could help you, but in this case...well, sometimes it’s OK to keep things to yourself, if being private makes you feel better.”

Steven was finishing up his conversation with Yellow Pearl. “Actually, Yellow Pearl, we’re in a little bit of a hurry to talk to Yellow Diamond. Could we see her now?”

Yellow Pearl waved her tablet away. “Yes, I suppose that is your right. You and your Pearl may follow me.”

“Um, Connie needs to come, too. She’s kind of why we’re here.”

Yellow Pearl looked at Connie. “Is that the same organic life you brought along on your last visit? She’s taken on a rather drastic change of appearance. Was she poofed since I last saw her?”

Connie pulled at the hood of her sweatshirt, trying to cover more of her face. “It’s a long story. Could I wait until after it’s fixed to tell it?”

Yellow Pearl nodded. “That is acceptable. Your Connie may also be seen by Yellow Diamond.” She then looked at Lars. “ _ This _ organic creature has to stay behind, however, unless there’s an important reason he also must be in the company of Yellow Diamond?”

Steven shrugged. “It’d just be nice to have him around, I guess.”

Lars put up a hand. “Not a big deal, Steven. I’ll hang out here, I’m used to it. The receptionist and I can get acquainted, you guys take your time.” The Lapis Lazuli did not react beyond a raised eyebrow.

“Well...OK.” Steven turned to Connie and Pearl. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Connie said, pushing herself up to a standing position.

Connie, Steven, and Pearl stood behind Yellow Pearl as she opened the door she had exited from and led them through.

The corridor they walked into was much more brilliant than the stark reception area they had been in. The walls were a rose gold and sparkling with a geometric pattern. But when Connie looked up, she saw that the wall panels had faces, with eyes following them. She leaned up against Steven. “ _ Steven _ ,” she hissed in his ear.

“They don’t like it when you talk to them,” Steven whispered back.

Connie respected their wishes and quietly followed Yellow Pearl, but kept her eyes on the Gems lining the wall. Before they reached the end of the hallway, she noticed two panels were missing.

The door at the end of the hallway led outside to an area Connie recognized as the courtyard where Yellow and Blue Diamond had fought each other over helping Steven and her escape. The damage appeared to be repaired, although some pieces of the architecture were conspicuously newer than the others. Yellow Pearl turned a corner, and they were back at the door to Yellow Diamond’s bubble room.

The door opened at their arrival. Yellow Pearl stepped into the room, announcing the guests. “My Diamond, Steven Diamond has returned to us and is requesting an audience with your radiance.”

“Come in,” came the low-pitched voice of Yellow Diamond from inside.

They filed in, with Yellow Diamond going to stand next to Yellow Diamond, and Connie, Steven, and Pearl standing in front of her.

Yellow Diamond was sitting on the large chair in her bubble room, poring through several tablets’ worth of information. She glanced up when they approached her but did not put the tablets away. “Steven. It’s good to see you so soon after your last visit. What’s it been, six months?”

“Closer to seven,” Steven answered.

“Thank you for respecting our agreement to travel here by ship instead of by warp pad,” Yellow said, swiping through on the screen in front of her. “It allowed us to track your arrival and make the necessary preparations. In the future, however, if you simply take your legs, you can land them directly on your palace. Instead of taking that circuitous route through the asteroid settlement and the outskirts of the city.”

“The legs weren’t exactly the most comfortable this time around,” Steven explained. “And I’m glad I took the long route through Homeworld, because there’s some things I think we should talk about.”

“Oh?”

Connie bunched her hands together in her sweatshirt pockets. “You promised you were going to stop treating the Gems here so badly!” she complained.

Yellow Diamond shot her a look. She set her tablets down on the arm of her chair and crossed one leg over the other. “Did I? I don’t remember making any promises to  _ you _ , child.”

“Well, not to me, but to Pearl and Garnet and Amethyst! When you made that treaty! Didn’t you?”

“The increased surveillance on the residents really is concerning,” Pearl said. “One of our stipulations--”

“What we agreed to was that we would not longer threaten our Gems with the potential for shattering. We have complied, and shattering is no longer considered for discipline. However, this could be perceived as weakness-- _ has _ been perceived as weakness--and so monitoring of the populace is our way of ensuring their continued loyalty.” Yellow Diamond uncrossed her legs and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and hands clasped in front of her. “We have given you Earth and a few guarantees for the safety of Gemkind, but what happens on Homeworld is an internal matter and it isn’t your place to dictate internal affairs of our empire. Is that going to be  _ agreeable _ to all of you?”

They all looked at each other silently for several heavy seconds, then Steven glanced at Pearl, who nodded, and he said, “Fine.”

Yellow Diamond sat back up, and the sternness in her face and voice faded. “Good. I respect your choice to stay on Earth for the time being, Steven, but remember the invitation for you to rejoin us here on Homeworld still stands, and then you would have some say in all this. But moving on, did you have some business to make you come all this way, or is it purely a social visit?” She smirked as she suggested this.

“Oh, yeah. We got Connie sick.”

Connie removed her hood as Yellow Diamond swung her gaze to her. “Do you mean her strange appearance? Isn’t it some sort of mask?”

Connie sighed, a little frustrated with Gems talking about her as if she weren’t there. “No. I fused with both Steven  _ and  _ Pearl, and now I’ve got whatever this is spreading from my forehead, and this one from my belly button.” She pulled her shirt and sweatshirt partway up to reveal the pink crystals on her abdomen.

Yellow Diamond stood up from her chair so quickly that Yellow Pearl stumbled backwards. She only had to take one step towards Connie before she was close enough to bend over in a narrow squat. “You’re telling me this is Gem material?” she asked Connie, leaning in to get a good look at her.

“I guess so. I don’t really know what it’s made of.”

Yellow reached a hand forward. Connie flinched, but Yellow very gently pushed her hair back to get a better look at her face. “When did this start?”

Connie did a quick figure in her head. “Almost seven days ago,” she answered.

Yellow’s eyes darted back and forth between Connie’s face and her abdomen. “Fascinating. A week and you’re still incredibly stable. The trials we’ve performed on other organics didn’t last more than a day.”

“You’ve been trying to fuse with other species?” Steven asked. “Even though you made such a big deal about it at my party?”

“Hm? No, of course not, we had different methods. You say you achieved this via fusion?” Yellow grabbed one of Connie’s hands and pulled it upwards, apparently checking to see if she was all still together. “I would love to see the end result of this.”

“No, we came here to get help curing her!”

“Completely understandable, you have an emotional attachment to this one.” Yellow turned to look at Steven. “But there’s humans you aren’t so well acquainted with, correct? If you could fuse with a few of them and then bring them here…”

Pearl held her hands up. “Yellow Diamond, I really must insist that no experiments be performed on humans.”

Yellow stopped handling Connie and rocked back to an upright position. “Oh, very well. Humans aren’t the only sentient species out there, we could attempt to create a few hybrids like Pink did with that Greg creature.” She rubbed her chin for a second, then shook her head and stood up. “Never mind, your Connie looks about ready to fall over, so let’s get to work. I think I have an idea to remove the Gem material, or at least stop it from spreading.”

Before she could do anything, a small chime sounded though the bubble room. Yellow picked up one of the tablets she had set on her chair and checked the screen. She sighed deeply. “Well, this isn’t unexpected.” She pressed a button and the door swung open.

Standing outside the doorway was White Diamond’s Pearl, now a bright pink with hands folded in front of her unlike her time being controlled by White. “Pardon the intrusion, my Diamonds,” she said meekly, “but White Diamond has requested to see you in her chambers.”

“Of course she has,” Yellow said resignedly. “All right. We should see what White wants from us.” She strode past Connie and the others toward the door, and they followed behind as quickly as they could. Addressing her own Pearl, Yellow said, “Pearl, stay behind here.” She then turned to White Diamond’s Pearl, “Pearl, the human girl is not in good physical shape. Would you transport her, Steven, and Pearl to White Diamond? I’ll make my way there myself.”

White Diamond’s Pearl gave a small bow. “Yes, of course, my Diamond. We shall see you there shortly.” Yellow Diamond nodded to Connie, then turned away and walked off in the apparent direction of White Diamond’s chambers. “If it pleases the three of you, would you mind standing a little closer to me?” They did so, a little hesitantly, and when they were standing very close to her, White Diamond’s Pearl made an upright motion with her hands and an opaque pink bubble surrounded the four of them.

Connie felt the bubble lift from the ground and steadied herself with a hand on the wall. “I thought this was one of White Diamond’s powers!”

White Diamond’s Pearl smiled at her curiously. “My orb?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you ever seen White Diamond hiding her brilliance in an orb?” White Diamond’s Pearl placed a hand over her mouth. “Forgive me, my lady, that was incredibly rude of me to say.”

Connie waved her hands in front of her. “Oh, no, don’t apologize! I just didn’t realize you were so powerful.”

“She was made for a Diamond after all,” Pearl said, with just a bit of pride for herself in her voice. White Diamond’s Pearl smiled at her and gave a very small nod.

During the ride, Steven stayed quiet, looking away from White Diamond’s Pearl, who also didn’t look directly at him. Steven had introduced himself to her shortly after she was released from White Diamond’s control, but when she learned that he was Pink Diamond but didn’t really remember her, she didn’t say any more to him other than what were her duties as a Pearl. Connie and the others had gotten the feeling that whatever had happened between Steven and White Diamond’s Pearl had not ended on pleasant memories, and they had decided to respect her nervousness and let the matter rest, at least for now. She was at least more open to Connie and Pearl than she had been the last time they saw her.

After a few minutes of a smooth but still unnerving trip in an opaque sphere, Connie felt it land and the orb opened up in White Diamond’s chambers.

Unlike the closed-off space of White Diamond’s head, her chambers were completely covered in windows, overlooking the other palaces on one side and the city center on the other. The floor was a sparkling silver tile and the ceiling, far above Connie’s head, supported five long, thin chandeliers which reflected light off the polished surfaces of the room.

Yellow Diamond had been arriving just as they had landed. “You took your time, Pearl.”

“I thought it best that we all arrive together, my Diamond,” White Diamond’s Pearl answered.

At the sound of their voices, the tall chair near the other wall swung around to reveal White Diamond sitting upon it. She was just as scary as Connie remembered, but her smile looked a little more genuine. “Starlight, you’ve returned to us,” White Diamond said, placing her hands on her chest. “I’ve already learned that it’s just for a visit, but, oh, it is so good to see you again.”

Steven started walking towards her, and Connie, Pearl, and Yellow Diamond followed behind him. “Hey, White. I’m glad you got out of your head.” When he stopped he was still a considerable distance away from her throne.

White’s smile faltered, but it looked out of sadness, not anger. “It was time. I still find it too difficult to leave the security of a single room, but I had forgotten what a wonderful view I have from my throne room.” She leaned back in her chair, ankles crossed in front of her. “Now, starlight, the word is that you’re here with a little problem. What can we help you with?”

Yellow answered, “Steven’s human friend has a contamination of Gem material, and they’d like to stop it.”

“Oh?” White stayed seated, but it was her turn to lean forward to look at Connie. Unlike Yellow Diamond and Yellow Pearl, however, she addressed Connie directly, “What happened to you?”

Connie cleared her throat before answering the giant face leaning toward her. She then rattled off all the events that led up to her standing in White Diamond’s throne room, from first fusing with a half human, and then that fusion fusing with a full Gem, and that Steven’s healing powers weren’t enough, and why they had to take a slower ship and the crystals had so much time to spread over her arms, legs, and chest. “And so I’m here now hoping you can help me!” she finished.

“What a remarkable event,” White said. She reached her huge hand toward Connie and placed it behind her back, then gently pulled forward causing Connie to tip backwards into her hand. “May I have a closer look at you?” she asked.

As Connie was raised into the air, she could hear Steven shouting behind her, “Let her go!” Connie couldn’t see anything behind White Diamond’s fingers, but she was sure he and Pearl had both summoned their weapons.

White tore her gaze away from Connie and looked behind her hand. “Starlight, I promise not to hurt her. I can’t apologize enough for what I did to you, but I just want to see what kind of sickness your friend has.”

White Diamond opened her palm flat when it was closer to her face, and Connie was able sit on her palm and see Steven and the others over the side. She didn’t know if White was being honest about not hurting her, but she did know that she didn’t want them to start a fight when she was so far from the ground, so she leaned over White’s hand and called, “Steven, it’s OK! Maybe she knows what she’s looking for!” She turned and faced White Diamond, waiting for what was next.

White smiled at her. “Can you show me how much there is?”

Connie took her sweatshirt off and set it next to her on White’s hand. “See, the bumps that started on my forehead have traveled down my arms and past my collar bone.” She pulled up her shirt past her belly button. “The ones down here have gone down to my legs and also up to my chest.”

White reached her other hand toward Connie and before Connie could stop her, she had grabbed Connie’s shirt by the back of the collar and was pulling it over her head. “May I see?” she asked, not waiting for an answer.

“Hey!” Connie said, trying to cover her bare chest with her arms.

But White Diamond didn’t seem to hear her protests. “Oh, moonbeam,” she said softly, “how beautiful you are.”

Connie looked down at her chest, then scrambled back, falling backward onto White’s hand so she was lying on her back. The crystals on her chest, which had been molding together as white and pink bumps came into contact with each other, had formed a counter-clockwise white and pink spiral. She touched her hand to it, and it felt solid, like one, flat...Gem. Connie started to hyperventilate. Had there been enough time since she got dressed on Lars’ ship and arriving here for this to happen? Had the presence of the Diamonds sped up their growth? “What’s happening to me?!” she begged. “Please make it stop!”

“Why would you want this to stop?” White Diamond asked. “What an extraordinary bit of good fortune you’ve received.”

Yellow Diamond, who was just tall enough to see over the top of White’s hands and see what was going on, interrupted. “White, please, the human is clearly terrified.”

White Diamond only had eyes for Connie. “But you’re barely human anymore, are you? You’re becoming something entirely new, moonbeam. I never believed in Yellow’s little experiments with the organics, but the three of you have gone on and done it yourselves. How marvelous.”

Steven and Pearl were protesting from below Connie, but they were being ignored.

White moved her other hand toward Connie again, one finger outstretched. Connie didn’t know what she planned to do with her, but in a panic, she closed her eyes and thrust her arms upward in front of her face.

Steven and Pearl’s protests fell silent. When Connie didn’t feel White’s hand on her, she cautiously opened one eye, then gave one terrified sob.

“Connie…” Steven murmured from below.

White Diamond’s face was the most joyful Connie had ever seen it. She watched as White moved a finger toward her again, but instead of approaching Connie herself, White pricked with her finger one of the small spikes that were surrounding Connie in a hemisphere. She pulled her finger back quickly, but it seemed to please her. She rubbed her finger and thumb together and told Connie, “It’s sharp.”

Connie could feel the tears streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean--I don’t know what’s going on, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make those, I don’t know how I made those, I’m sorry,” she started babbling.

“Moonbeam, there’s nothing to be sorry about. These are beautiful. And how much more beautiful they could be! What do you think these could become, hm? A shield like the Pink Diamond on your belly makes? A sharp weapon like the Pearl on your forehead?” She cupped her other hand behind the hand Connie was sitting in, cradling her near her chest. “Or something completely unpredictable?”

“She can’t stay like this!” Pearl shouted.

“Of course not,” White said, “she’s still transforming. Into what, we can only wait and see.” She smiled at Connie. “You want to see what will happen, don’t you? You could become something magnificent. Don’t you want to see how powerful you could become, what kind of weapon you could form?”

Connie gasped for breath between tears. “I don’t--”

“Put her down!” Steven was yelling.

“You could become strong,” White was telling her, “invincible.  _ Immortal _ . Surely you want to become all those things, to be more like  _ us _ .”

“No!” Connie shouted. The spikes surrounding her fell toward her, disappearing before they hit her or White’s hands. Connie sat up, and held her hands over the crystal plate on her chest. “I don’t…” she took a breath, making the tears stop, “...I don’t want that.” She looked over the side of White’s hands, at Steven and Pearl with their weapons drawn, and at Yellow with her hands tensed at her sides, then looked back at White. “I don’t want to be like you.”

“Are we not good enough for you, moonbeam?” White’s smile was bigger, more forced.

Connie shook her head, and she felt her senses return to her and her body calming. Her shirt had floated to the floor after White took it off her, but she pulled her hoodie back over her shoulders. “That’s not it. You Gems can do so much, you’re so strong, so skilled, and you live so long. I want to be strong, but...I want to be a human more. I want to develop my skills with my own strength, I want to experience hardships that make me stronger...and I want to get old. And someday die. I love being with you all, seeing your world, more than almost anything. But I don’t want to be a Gem.”

White’s fake smile vanished, and her eyebrows slanted toward the bridge of her nose in anger. “It doesn’t matter, I simply can’t let you go.” She closed her fist around Connie, not tight enough to hurt but certainly tight enough to prevent Connie from hoping to wriggle free. Connie pushed against her hand anyway, thinking that this must have been how Steven felt when he was first picked up by White Diamond. She could feel the vibrations through White’s hand as Steven and Pearl started to attack her lower legs, but White didn’t appear to notice. “You could be the missing link between Gemkind and organics! I  _ must _ see what becomes of you.”

Connie struggled in White’s hand. Steven and Pearl might be able to take White out together, especially if Yellow took their side, but if White just blanked them out again, or squeezed her hand too tight, it would be over. She had to stop this now.

As she was struggling, Connie’s hand brushed against one of her hoodie pockets, and she felt the pouch that she had almost forgotten she had with her. “Wait!” she yelled.

White Diamond smirked. “Wait for what, moonbeam? You’re already where I want you to be.”

Connie grabbed the pouch in her pocket and managed to pull her arm out from White’s hand, painfully wrenching her shoulder in the process. She held the little bag up. “Look!”

“What do you have there? A little present for me? It won’t be enough for me to release you.”

“Just…” Connie squirmed in White’s hand, “...just loosen your grip a little and I’ll show you. Steven! Pearl! Just hold on a second!” At her plea, Steven and Pearl pulled back from White’s legs, and White loosened her grip enough for Connie to pull her other arm out. Connie held the pouch in the palm of one hand and loosened the drawstring with the other. The sides of the bag opened and the Gem seeds were revealed, sparkling from the shine of the chandeliers and from the light coming off White Diamond herself.

“Why, you’ve stumbled on some Gem seeds!” She picked up the bag, an insignificant size between her fingers. “Left behind in your planet’s kindergarten, I assume? But we already have plenty of these, moonbeam.”

“I didn’t get them from the kindergarten. Someone’s been trading these,” Connie explained.

White’s eyes widened momentarily, then narrowed. She pulled Connie even closer to her face, until Connie was so close she had to turn her head to look at either of White Diamond’s eyes. “Who.”

Connie took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself down. “Put me down, and I’ll tell you.” White just stared at her, so Connie continued, “Whatever’s happening to me could kill me, and then you’ll never know who’s out there starting a new army. An army that isn’t under your control. This bag was only a small amount of the shipment we saw.”

This had obviously upset White Diamond, as Connie felt White’s hand start to squeeze ever so slightly. Connie tried to not panic and just return White’s glare. After several  _ very _ tense seconds, White Diamond lowered Connie to the ground and opened her hand.

Connie coughed as the compression left her ribcage, and stumbled as quickly as she could away from White Diamond. She fell into Steven’s arms, who helped her a safe distance away from White. About halfway between the throne and the door, they stopped and Steven held his shield in front of himself and Connie. Pearl stood next to him with her spear readied. Yellow Diamond slid her foot in front of them, a voiceless indication to White that they were under her protection as well.

Connie, leaning into Steven’s side for support, looked behind them. White Diamond’s Pearl was standing in front of the closed door. Her expression was neutral, but her position between them and the exit made it clear that they would not be leaving the throne room without either giving White Diamond what she wanted or fighting their way out.

White Diamond lowered herself back into her chair. She leaned on the armrest and rested her chin on her fist. Her smile was gone. “You have your freedom. Give me the name of the Gem seed trader.”

Steven looked at Connie nervously. “Don’t,” he whispered.

Connie shook her head. “I have to,” she whispered back. She pushed herself to a standing position and tried to make herself look as tall as possible next to the Diamonds that dwarfed her. She called out to White Diamond, “It was Aquamarine!”

White’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Be more specific.”

“I don’t know her ID code or whatever that is! The one that Blue and Yellow sent to kidnap me!”

Yellow nodded slowly. “Yes, I know the one.” She said to White, “That Aquamarine abandoned her post some months ago. She is unaccounted for.”

White drummed her fingers on the armrest opposite the one she was leaning on. “And where did Aquamarine get the seeds?”

“I don’t know,” Connie lied.

“Are you sure? The pink human you brought with you didn’t have anything to do with it?”

“No. We found Aquamarine’s operation on our trip to Homeworld. She had two Alabasters with her. That’s all we know.”

“Which Alabasters?”

“I didn’t know them.”

White just glowered at her, tapping her fingers, until Yellow said, “I believe them, White. That Aquamarine has always been concerningly ambitious, and Alabasters all seem to have a tendency to abandon their stations in favor of more exciting opportunities.”

White tapped her fingers faster and faster until she finally stopped and stood up. “Very well,” she said. “That you don’t see my vision is incredibly disappointing, but you’ve become more trouble than you’re worth. You may leave.” She waved her hand forward and the large double doors to her throne room swung open, and her Pearl walked to the side out of the way.

Connie, Steven, and Pearl didn’t need any further encouragement, and they quickly turned and walked as fast as Connie could toward the door, Steven holding his shield over her the whole way.

Yellow followed them out, and as they made it to the doorway, White called to her, “Yellow, you will renew your experiments in this matter.”

“Of course,” Yellow replied.

When they were outside White’s throne room, the doors swung closed behind them with a defining thud.

Connie immediately started to sob. Steven dismissed his shield and she collapsed into his arms, wailing into his shoulder.

“You were so brave in there,,” Steven told her.

Connie hugged him around the neck. “I’m so sorry,” she said between sobs, “I don’t know why that happened, I didn’t want you to see me do those things or hear me say those things, I don’t know, I don’t--”

Steven cut her off, “Connie, calm down. You didn’t do anything wrong.” He looked up at Yellow Diamond and asked, “Are we going to be able to cure her without White Diamond’s help? I don’t think we can wait for Blue to get back, either.”

“If what I think is happening to her is true, it doesn’t matter how many Diamonds we have. We just need my equipment.” Yellow looked off in the direction of her own palace. “Let’s head to my extraction chamber.”

Connie shook her head into Steven’s shoulder. “I can’t walk that far.”

Yellow kneeled down and laid a hand on the ground. “Come.”

Connie hesitated to crawl onto another Diamond’s hand, but Steven gently led her onto it and got on himself. When they were safely sitting on her hand, Yellow slowly stood up and held them close to her chest.

They started the trip back to Yellow’s palace, Pearl keeping pace alongside Yellow, and Connie began to calm down. She took a deep breath and held her hands in front of her on her lap. She focused on her palms and after a few seconds another spike appeared above them.

The spike resembled a toy jack, about an inch across with six perpendicular crystal points, but these were obviously quite sharp. It hovered a few inches above Connie’s hands, slowly rotating and revealing the mix of white and pink color.

“It really is beautiful,” Steven said quietly.

“I know.” Connie let the spike slowly fade out of existence.

They soon reached Yellow’s palace, went through another hallway with Gems on the wall, back out into the courtyard, and entered the extraction chamber.

Connie took in the room as she and Steven were slowly lowered to the floor. The room was yellow and had two statues on one end pouring water into a narrow pool surrounding a recess in the floor.

Yellow Diamond sat down on the floor with her feet in that recess. She thought for a minute, then said, “We’ll need a bench, big enough for Connie to lie on, about as tall as…Steven’s chest.” That rectangular bench appeared on the lowered floor quickly, and Connie saw the Pebbles scurry away when they were completed. When Steven looked at her for explanation, Yellow shrugged and said, “I liked what they did in Pink’s room. Some of them work for me now. Connie, are you ready to start?”

“Of course,” Connie said. “What do I do?”

“Settle down on that bench for now.” Yellow held her hand out next to the ledge and Connie walked onto it and let herself be lowered to the lower floor. She sat on the bench. It had a thin cushion on it, like the bed the Pebbles had made for Steven, seeming to be made of some plastic and thin metal mesh. She could tell why the fabrics that Lars was bringing in were more desirable. “Removed your clothing,” Yellow told her.

“All of it?” Connie asked.

“Any of it that covers those bumps.”

That was all of it, so Connie started to strip, unzipping her sweatshirt.

Steven blushed and looked away. “I’ll just wait outside.”

“No, I need you here,” Yellow Diamond said. “Your hands are smaller than mine.”

“Why can’t Pearl help?” Steven asked, still looking away from Connie.

“She won’t be able to stay in here for very long once I turn the extraction on. Besides, you should learn how to do this now while I can observe you, in case something like this happens again.”

When Steven didn’t react, Pearl crossed her arms. “Oh, for stars’ sake, Steven. Connie doesn’t have anything that Stevonnie doesn’t have.” That just made Steven cover his face in his hands.

Connie, now pulling off her underpants, felt a blush start creeping herself. “Actually, I don’t think  _ anyone _ has what Stevonnie has,” she explained for Pearl.

“Really? Well, I’d love to know more. When we’re all done here, if you two would explain more to me…”

Steven yelled out his frustration. “Never mind!” He jumped into the lower floor, slowing his descent slightly but still landing pretty hard. “Let’s just get this over with!”

Connie was sitting up with her legs pressed together, one hand covering her pelvic area and the other arm draped across her chest. She tried to stop herself from worrying about the light fuzz peeking out between the crystals on her legs that she hadn’t shaved since before this all started. “It’s fine,” she told Steven. “Just help me get better, and we can be embarrassed about this later.”

Steven nodded, managing to look Connie in the eyes as he did so.

“If your little theatrics are finished…” Yellow sighed. “Pearl, come here.” She summoned a tablet in front of her, and held it so that Pearl could see the screen. “This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to calibrate the extraction for Pearl and Pink Diamond material. That should start the process of removing it from Connie’s…” she looked up and addressed Connie and Steven. “Remind me what humans call that fluid running through their bodies.”

“Blood?” Steven offered.

“Yes, thank you. It should get the Pearl and Pink Diamond material out of Connie’s bloodstream. You’ll need to leave the room when this starts, Pearl, as smaller Gems don’t tend to handle extraction very well. Steven, you will feel the extraction, but I don’t believe your Gem has been properly extracted since Pink left to start her colony, so you’re overdue anyway. While this is happening, Steven and I will get to work removing those bumps. Mostly Steven, since his hands are smaller.”

“You really sound like you know what you’re doing,” Pearl said. “Have you treated an FTD before?”

Yellow turned to her with a confused look on her face. “An FT…?” Then she laughed, harder than Connie had ever seen her do. “I can’t believe that story is still going around,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “I can’t even remember who started that rumor, was it one of my Corundums? Oh, Blue will enjoy this.” She shook her head at Pearl, who had flushed blue. “FTDs aren’t real. They’re a story someone in my court made up to help work up the taboo of mixed-Gem fusions. No, this is based on my previous experiments with organic lifeforms, and some deductive reasoning.”

“I see,” Pearl said. “Well, Garnet will be happy to hear that.”

“I made you lose a bet, hm?”

Pearl scoffed. “We certainly never made a  _ wager _ .”

“Of course.” Yellow pressed some buttons on her tablet. “I’m turning the extraction on now. Pearl, go find my Pearl, she should be wandering around somewhere. She can give you the design specifications for the extraction chamber so you can build one on Earth if you want to.”

Pearl clasped her hands together, and her face returned to its normal color. “Oh, excellent!” She turned and waved at Connie and Steven. “Good luck, you two!”

“See you later, Pearl,” Connie said with a weak smile.

Pearl smiled once more and then turned and walked out of the room, the door opening for her and then closing behind.

Yellow Diamond pushed herself up enough to then lower herself into the recessed floor, sitting cross legged next to Connie’s bench. “Hold up your arm, Connie.” Connie removed the arm covering her chest and held it out. Yellow gently took hold of it, and gave Connie’s forearm a slight squeeze between her thumb and pointer finger. A large bead of liquid pushed out of Connie’s pores. It wasn’t sweat, it was a mostly opaque bluish color and was very viscous. Yellow brushed it away with her fingers. “There, that’s Gem material making its way out of your body. So far so good. Lie down and we’ll get to work removing the crystals.”

As Connie lay down on her back, hands again covering the parts of her body she wanted to hide, Steven turned to Yellow and asked, “Hey Yellow? Are you really going to try to do what happened to Connie with some aliens?”

“Yes,” Yellow answered.

“Is it because White’s making you?” Steven asked.

“No,” Yellow answered. She reached down and placed the tip of her finger on the large crystal plate that had formed on Connie’s chest. Connie moved her arm out of the way, and used both hands to cover her pelvic area. “Hold her shoulders, Steven. Let’s get the big one out first, and get it over with.”

Steven walked around behind Connie and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Wouldn’t it be easier if we broke it into a few pieces first?” he asked nervously.

“Perhaps.” Yellow moved the tip of her finger to the top of the Gem plate. “But my fee for helping you today is that I get to keep this.” And she peeled the plate off of Connie’s chest.

All concerns of modesty gone, Connie’s hands flew to the sides and gripped the edges of the bench as she screamed. Her legs kicked upwards, and she would have pushed herself up if not for Steven’s hands on her shoulders. The plate peeled off in a second, but it felt like much, much longer.

“Connie!” Steven yelled in concern. “Yellow, what were you thinking?!”

Connie looked down at her chest. It didn’t appear that the plate had gone very deep, in fact she could see Yellow holding the thin disc between her fingers, but the top layer of her skin had torn off with it, leaving her completely raw and bleeding. Connie lifted her hands above her face, and when she couldn’t summon the spikes, she chuckled weakly. “It’s gone,” she said in a cracking voice. She dropped her hands to rest on her tattered chest, and let herself pass out.

 

She started waking up again some time later, keeping her eyes closed as she drifted back into consciousness. She could feel Steven pulling out the crystals from her legs. It stung, but wasn’t anything like the plate being pulled out. She felt a soft kiss after each crystal was pulled out, and the stinging sensation faded.

“I think that’s all the bumps on her front,” she heard Steven say after a few minutes. She must have been unconscious for quite a while.

“All right, let’s turn her over and start on her back,” she heard Yellow Diamond say.

Connie groaned and opened her eyes. “I’m awake.”

She let Steven help her up to a sitting position, and he started pulling out the crystals from her shoulderblades. “Um, I left the ones...for you to do.”

Connie looked down and saw that the bumps on her pelvic area were indeed still there. “OK,” she replied. She was too tired to say anything else. She reached down and started pulling them out. She sucked in a breath as she pulled the first one out. She had heard of girls waxing down there and how much they said it hurt, and without experiencing it herself she knew that it had nothing on this. But with some teeth-gritting and some contortions of her now crystal-free legs, she managed to pull them all out.

Steven was still working on her back. Now that he knew she was awake, he had gone back to licking his own hand and pressing that against her skin, instead of kissing it directly. As he was getting to her lower back, Connie asked, “Hey, Yellow? Will keeping a crystal make the others start growing again?”

Yellow, still seated next to the bench but leaving Steven to do the work, thought for a second. “I don’t think so. The crystals are just symptoms of the material that was in your bloodstream. Once that’s been extracted, the crystals should be benign.”

Connie turned around to get as good a look at her lower back as she could. She put her finger on a particularly large pink crystal near her right hip. “Keep this one, Steven. It’ll be cute, like a tattoo.”

“Won’t your parents be mad?” Steven asked.

Connie shrugged. “Probably.” They both started giggling, and Connie felt better than she had in days.

After another minute, Steven was done. “That’s all of them, right?”

“Other than the one I kept, I think so,” Connie said.

“Do you want to borrow some of my spit? To heal...you know.”

“Mmm, we can just let this part heal the old-fashioned way. Hand me the sanitary supplies I gave you to put in your backpack.”

“Oh, right!” Steven reached into his backpack, resting against the bench, and dug around in it for a few seconds. He pulled out a small zippered pouch and handed it to Connie.

Even though Connie knew that Steven knew what was in the pouch, he wasn’t embarrassed by it like he was by her nudity. Most of the other boys Connie knew were. Probably he just considered this to be like any other bandage. Connie opened the pouch and pulled out one of the packages she had packed ‘just in case,’ ripped it open, and stuck it to the inside of her underpants. If it absorbed blood from inside her body, it would absorb blood from her ripped skin, too.

Connie started pulling her clothes on. “Are we done, then?” she asked.

“Let me see your arm again,” Yellow said. Connie again presented an arm for Yellow Diamond to squeeze. This time it stayed dry. “It looks like you’re empty of Gem material. Good.” Without making any commands that Connie could notice, the bluish liquid that was pooling by their feet and dripping off Steven’s skin was quickly sucked into a drain in the center of the room. The steam surrounding them dissipated with it. “You should rest for a few hours before you head home, though, to make sure the treatment took. I have a more comfortable place to do that.” Yellow stood up, stepped out of the recessed floor, and stood by the door.

Connie finished zipping up her sweatshirt. She had never got her undershirt back from White Diamond, but she gave that up for lost. She let Steven grab her around the waist, and he jumped up to the upper floor with her. Connie, Steven, and Yellow Diamond exited the extraction chamber together.

Pearl and Yellow Pearl were waiting near the door, chatting with each other. Yellow Pearl immediately snapped to attention, Diamond salute and all, but Pearl ran up to Connie and threw her arms around her neck. “Connie! You look so much better!”

Connie reached up and returned the hug. “I  _ feel _ a lot better.”

Pearl stood back up, still holding Connie’s shoulders. “So you’re cured?”

“I think so. Yellow Diamond wants to me to stay here for a little bit to make sure, though.”

“I have a room in the central palace that’s suited for the task,” Yellow said. “Connie, I’d like you to walk there if you’re able. It’s not a long distance, but it should help get your strength up.”

“Yeah, I think I should be able to,” Connie agreed.

The five of them headed through the courtyard toward the central palace. Steven skipped as the rest walked. “I feel so light!” he said.

“That would be the extraction,” Yellow said. “If you pay attention, you might notice a slight reduction in your powers for the next few weeks, but I’ve generally found that a good extraction once or twice a decade is worth it.”

After passing in and out of a few interior corridors, Yellow Diamond led them all to a door in the central palace. Yellow Pearl pressed the buttons on the wall panel and it swung open, revealing a very narrow room. But Yellow Diamond walked inside so the rest followed, and the door closed behind them. When the floor started rising upwards, it became obvious that it was an elevator.

The elevator rose quickly, and they reached their destination within about ten seconds. The door opened, and they were bathed in sunlight as if they were outdoors.

The room they were in was clearly on the upper story of the central palace. Two walls and the ceiling were entirely glass, allowing the light of the sunset in. The room was lined with large, Diamond-sized chairs, and in the middle of the room was a large pool. Most notably, however, was that the room was full of plants. Large vases next to the chairs held flowering shrubs, and hanging planters held viney plants spilling over the sides.

“Oh, wow,” Connie whispered as they stepped out of the elevator.

“Do you like it?” Yellow asked. “The plants are a new acquisition, of course. I got them in several shipments as gifts from members of my court, and yes I know they were ultimately from the pink human.” She ran a finger down the vines of a hanging plant. “This room was Blue’s idea initially, but I think it’s taken to me more than it has her.” Looking down toward Connie and Steven, she said, “So this is it. Relax, nap on the chairs, dip your feet in the water. Get better.”

“Do you mind if we get  _ into _ the water?” Connie asked. “Neither of us have had a proper bath since we left Earth.”

“Is this regarding the smell the two of you are emanating? Yes, please do. The water is treated and replaced daily. Get in, use whatever chemicals you have with you to get clean. Pearl, Pearl, join me on the other side of the pool while the humans take care of their biological needs.” Yellow began walking around the pool toward a chair on the other side.

Connie started stripping again, and Steven joined her. They jumped into the pool. The water was only up to their chests, making it essentially just a reflecting pool for a Gem the size of a Diamond. Steven pulled a bar of soap out from his backpack and passed it to Connie, still respectfully averting his eyes.

Connie took it and started rubbing at the back of her neck. “So, Steven, you’re so embarrassed around me when I’m naked, but don’t seem to have a problem getting naked in front of people yourself.”

“Oh! I can cover up more if you’re getting uncomfortable.”

Connie laughed and passed the bar of soap back to Steven. “No, it’s fine. I’m just wondering what the difference is.”

Steven rubbed the soap into his hair. “Hmm...I think it’s just because I was mostly raised by Gems, who don’t really have the concept of modesty.”

“So then why do you get so upset around me when I’m naked?”

“Well, you’re different.”

“Because I’m a girl?”

“Yes? I’m not really sure.”

Connie let the topic drop. She took the soap back from Steven and started on her armpits. She glanced over at Yellow and the Pearls, and then whispered, “Steven, look at that.”

Yellow Diamond was sitting on one chair, and Pearl and Yellow Pearl were sitting together on a chair opposite her. They were all talking together about something, but the pool was large enough that Connie and Steven couldn’t make out anything other than the rumble from Yellow’s large voice. “That’s probably not something you’d see on Homeworld before we got involved,” Steven said, echoing Connie’s thoughts.

Connie and Steven finished bathing after several more passes of the soap. After Steven climbed out of the pool, Connie took a second to relieve her bladder into it, assuming that Steven had done so himself. She climbed out of the pool and started pulling her clothes back on.

When they were finished getting dressed, Connie and Steven managed to climb up onto one of the giant chairs together. They leaned back into the plasticy cushion and enjoyed the view of the sun setting over the Homeworld city center.

After about twenty minutes of contented silence, Connie felt herself start to doze off. Before she did, she murmured, “Hey Steven?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry about what I said in White’s room.”

Steven turned his head toward her. “What do you mean?”

“About not wanting to be a Gem. I didn’t mean that being a Gem is something bad. And I want to grow up with you, but maybe that means I shouldn’t have removed that Gem on my chest, and we could both live forever.”

Steven grabbed her hand. “No, Connie, you did the right thing. What you want to be is the right thing. Nobody knows what’s going to happen to me, so we should just be who we are for now. Let’s figure it out together.”

Connie gave his hand a squeeze back. They spent the rest of their time in the greenhouse in silence, and she let herself fall into a half-sleep.

Eventually, Connie was woken by Yellow’s voice over her head. “How are you feeling?”

Connie rubbed her eyes before opening them. The sun had set and the room was dark, except the light cast by the few lamps hanging from the ceiling. “I think I’m feeling OK,” she answered.

“Any new crystals?”

Connie felt around near the pink bump she had kept near her back, and then pinched the skin on her hand to test for the Gem material. Both came up negative. “Looks good,” she said.

“Good. Let’s get you on your way back home.”

Connie and Steven jumped off the gigantic chair and followed Yellow Diamond with Pearl and Yellow Pearl back down the elevator, through a few more corridors, and finally back to the reception area near the front door of the Palace.

The front desk was empty, and Lars was sitting on the bench along the front wall, asleep. He woke up at the sound of their entrance, rubbing his eyes. “Hey…” he said, stretching, “you look a lot better.”

Connie smiled and walked over to him. “I think I am better.”

“You’ve got a little bit of a limp there,” he said.

Connie stopped walking. “Still a little tender in some spots,” she muttered, glancing away.

Yellow Diamond strode into the room. “Lars,” she said, as both a greeting and a command.

Lars looked up at her and then jumped off the bench. “H-hey, Yellow Diamond,” he responded.

Yellow Diamond put her hands on her hips and gazed down at him. “It has come to our attention that an Aquamarine has been trading valuable Homeworld property without permission of the Diamond Authority. She is obviously not working alone, and  _ when _ we find her, we will find out who her supplier is. It’s in the best interest of whoever that is to stay away from Homeworld for the foreseeable future. Not that that has anything to do with you, of course.”

“Right…” Lars said, taking a few steps back. “I’ll make sure to tell any shady characters I run into that they aren’t welcome here.”

Yellow smiled at him. “Good. But let those shady characters know that they can still send gifts through proxies. Now, if you’re all ready to depart, I’ve arranged for a private shuttle to take you directly to Klavius 7. It should be waiting just outside for you now.”

They all filtered outside into the chill of evening on Homeworld. There was indeed a shuttle parked just outside. Another Ruby waited for them next to the shuttle door, and Connie was mostly sure that it was a different Ruby than the one who had driven the first shuttle. “Ruby private shuttle service!” she announced, opening the shuttle door and then giving a Diamond salute.

Connie, Pearl, Lars, and Steven walked on to the bus. Steven stopped in the doorway, and looked up at Yellow. “Hey, Yellow, can you say goodbye to White for me? I’m not quite ready to give up on being friends with her yet.”

Yellow nodded. “I’ll do what I can. But just concentrate on the journey back to Earth for now. You’ve all been away from home for long enough.” She patted the top of the shuttle, and the Ruby pulled the levers necessary to start it, and they were on their way back to Lars’ ship.

 

Late that night, long after the Sun Incinerator had taken off and set a course back to Earth, Connie sat alone at the table in the common area. Steven was in Lars’ room, sleeping, Fluorite quietly managed the engines, and everyone else was on the upper story.

Lars’ broke Connie’s solitude by trudging down the stairs and into the common area. “Oh, man,” he said, “Pearl is going to be interrogating me the whole ride home. I keep telling her, I  _ don’t _ know why Peridot agreed to help me get the seeds, and I  _ don’t _ know if she recruited any help.” He started opening cabinets and taking things out of them. “Also there’s something about experiments on aliens that she’s worried about? You guys got into some stuff, obviously.” He set a bottle of moonshine, two forks and two saucers, a bottle of hot sauce, and a salt shaker down on the table in front of Connie. “But check out what my crew bought for me at the market today,” he said, pulling a round object out of a mesh bag sitting on top of the counter.

“A melon?” Connie guessed.

Lars held the fruit out in front of him to examine it. “I guess I have no idea what they call it on whatever planet this was taken from. But it’s chock full of bromelain.” He took the fruit in both hands and firmly tapped the rind on the counter. It cleanly broke into six wedges, spilling out the greenish-yellow flesh of the fruit. “It’s basically a pineapple but  _ more _ .” He put the wedges on a serving plate and set that in the middle of the table, then sat in a chair across from Connie. “So, anyway. You sure you don’t want to travel through my head? Your parents are probably pretty worried about you.”

Connie smirked. “Maybe tomorrow...or the next day. I told them I’d be back in four days, they’re already going to kill me.”

Lars picked up two wedges and put one on each saucer, and pushed one to Connie. “That’s fine with me, just don’t tell them about how I was involved with all this.”

Connie cringed. “Lars, I’m sorry I snitched on your operation.”

Lars chuckled. “It’s fine, I got the details from Steven and Pearl. You did what you had to do. Being able to retire on a Homeworld colony was a pipe dream, anyway, so we’re just going to lie low on Earth for awhile when we get back.” He shoved one of the forks towards Connie. “Seriously, try the fruit.”

Connie took the fork and cut off a piece of the fruit, then stabbed the piece and put it in her mouth. It tasted  _ kind of _ like pineapple, but less sweet and a much stronger digestive sensation on her tongue. “It’s...fine,” she said.

Lars leaned back in his chair and looked up either stairwell. Satisfied that no one was coming down the stairs, he said softly to Connie, “Dip it in the alcohol.”

Connie looked around herself, then cut another piece and used the fork to dunk it into the jar of moonshine that Lars opened for her. She popped the alcohol-saturated fruit into her mouth. “That’s good,” she said.

Lars spread some hot sauce on his saucer and shook the salt shaker over it. “Help yourself to the other condiments, too,” he said, running an alcohol-dipped piece of fruit through the salty hot sauce mixture. His eyes rolled back as he put it in his mouth and he audibly hummed his approval.

“I think I’ll pass on that,” she said, but dipped another piece into the moonshine.

“So what are you doing up this late?” Lars asked. “I figured you’d be exhausted.”

“I am,” Connie said, “but my mind’s racing too much to sleep.”

“Anything you wanna talk about?”

Connie sighed and ate another piece of fruit. She rested her cheek on her hand. “I don’t know. Did Pearl tell you what White said about me?”

“About how you could have become a Gem.”

“Or it could have killed me.”

“That is pretty scary. I guess I’d have trouble sleeping, too.”

Connie hesitated. “But what’s really keeping me up, is that for a second I almost said yes. Even though I knew it could kill me, I almost risked it for a chance to be like Steven and the Crystal Gems. I  _ like _ being a human, but whenever I’m not on a Gem mission, I feel...empty? Like I don’t care about anything going on in my own life. And I’ve felt like this for awhile, way before I got sick…” she trailed off, and shook her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to tell you all that.”

Lars looked at her as he munched on piece of fruit, then swallowed and said, “It kind of just sounds like you’re depressed.” When Connie didn’t respond right away, he continued, “Depression is--”

“I know what depression is,” Connie interrupted. “My mom’s a doctor. And yeah, you might be right. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that possibility.”

“Talk to your parents about it?”

“What if they just send me away to a hospital? Or put me on drugs so I feel even less?”

Lars leaned back in his chair again. “Is your mom a good doctor?” he asked.

“Of course,” Connie answered.

“Then she won’t do that.” Lars let the chair fall back down. “They’ll probably make you see a therapist for awhile, but it’s not that big of a deal. My parents made  _ me _ go to therapy when I was your age.”

“Really?” Connie asked. “Did it help?”

Lars scratched the back of one of his ears. “Well, I was forced into it, so it didn’t help as much as it would have if I were open to the experience. Certainly didn’t hurt, though. Look, don’t go spreading that around. Yeah, I know, ‘therapy isn’t shameful,’ I just don’t want to have to answer a lot of questions about it.”

Connie nodded. “I won’t tell anyone. And thanks, Lars, this really did help.”

Lars smiled, and popped the last piece of his wedge of fruit into his mouth. “Just remember that you have friends and family to talk to about this kind of stuff,” he said after he swallowed, “and impartial professionals if you’d rather talk to them.”

Connie dunked her last piece of fruit into the alcohol, too. “Yeah,” she said, putting it her mouth.

Lars stood up and picked up the plate with the other four fruit wedges. “I’m going to head back upstairs,” he said. He took another quick look at the stairwells. “Take a couple swigs of the moonshine if it helps, then put the rest of it back in the cupboard. I’ll take care of the rest of the dishes tomorrow, you just get to sleep.”

“I will. Good night.”

Lars nodded to her, then walked upstairs with the plate of fruit.

Connie sat at the table a while longer. She did take two swallows of the plain moonshine, and it was all she could stomach. But the combination of the plain alcohol, what was absorbed in the fruit, and her fatigue from the day made her too tired to think about what was worrying her. She got up, screwed the lid back on the jar, and put it back in the cabinet.

She walked through Lars’ bedroom to the bathroom, used the toilet, and brushed her teeth. When she was finished and opened the bathroom door, she saw that Steven was sitting upright in bed.

“Oh,” Connie said. “Um, how long have you been awake?”

Steven shrugged. “A little while, I guess,” he admitted.

Connie glanced toward the doorway through which she could see the common area. “Um...how much of that conversation did you hear?”

Steven shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Lars said all the important stuff.”

Connie smiled, and that turned into a laugh. She stopped herself before it turned to crying, and she crawled onto the bed. She and Steven settled in next to each other, and the thrum of the engine soothed Connie to sleep.


End file.
